Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

The Death Penalty Information Center has expand­ed the resources relat­ed to its award-win­n­ing Educational Curriculum on the Death Penalty. We now offer a list­serv for edu­ca­tors who teach about cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, free teacher train­ing work­shops, and free brochures for dis­tri­b­u­tion to schools and teach­ers. Launched in 2000, DPIC​’s Educational Curriculum is a bal­anced Internet-based class­room tool that offers flex­i­ble les­son plans, teacher overviews, sep­a­rate teacher and…

For Florida pris­on­ers, includ­ing death row inmates, who were con­vict­ed before DNA evi­dence was rou­tine­ly test­ed, the state-imposed October 1 dead­line to sub­mit new claims is fast approach­ing. After that date, evi­dence may be destroyed and the chance for an exon­er­a­tion extin­guished. Yet the sys­tem is seri­ous­ly back­logged and under-resourced. Noting that Governor Jeb Bush recent­ly stat­ed that any court in Florida or else­where would​“imme­di­ate­ly” review a pris­on­er’s…

Legislation that would allow those con­vict­ed of cap­i­tal mur­der to be sen­tenced to life in prison with­out parole recent­ly failed to win a key pro­ce­dur­al vote in the Texas Senate, large­ly because of oppo­si­tion from pros­e­cu­tors and pro-death penal­ty orga­ni­za­tions who said it would result in few­er death sen­tences. Although sup­port­ed by a strong major­i­ty of the sen­a­tors and the peo­ple of Texas, the bill need­ed a 2/​3 major­i­ty in order to be debat­ed. The Senate’s…

According to a new report issued by Amnesty International, the United States is among four coun­tries that car­ried out the vast major­i­ty of the 3,797 exe­cu­tions around the world in 2004. Amnesty’s report states that the nations car­ry­ing out the most exe­cu­tion­ers last year were China (3,400), Iran (159), Vietnam (64), United States (59), Saudi Arabia (33), Pakistan (15), Kuwait (9), Bangladesh (7), Egypt (6), Singapore (6), and Yemen (6). The report notes that the increase in…

A Georgia Superior Court over­turned the mur­der con­vic­tion of death row inmate Willie Palmer after find­ing that pros­e­cu­tors hid a $500 pay­off to the state’s key tri­al wit­ness, an act the judge said was​“in defi­ance of (the state’s) legal and eth­i­cal duties.” The judge also threw out Palmer’s death sen­tence on the grounds that his tri­al lawyer failed to inves­ti­gate and present evi­dence of Palmer’s men­tal retar­da­tion. In his opin­ion, the judge not­ed that prosecutors…

In the most com­pre­hen­sive exam­i­na­tion of a statute in the his­to­ry of the New York State Legislature, state law­mak­ers released a report high­light­ing the tes­ti­mo­ny of 170 wit­ness­es at five statewide hear­ings on the state’s death penal­ty law. The report, issued by Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver along with the Chairs of the Committees on Codes, the Judiciary and Correction, is a thor­ough exam­i­na­tion of the statute and its…

During his 26 years as leader of the Roman Catholic Church, the late Pope John Paul II fre­quent­ly called for an end to the death penal­ty. Among his state­ments on this issue were the fol­low­ing:​“May the death penal­ty, an unwor­thy pun­ish­ment still used in some coun­tries, be abol­ished through­out the world.” (Prayer at the Papal Mass at Regina Coeli Prison in Rome, July 9, 2000).​“A sign of hope is the increas­ing recog­ni­tion that the dig­ni­ty of human life must nev­er be taken…

As two men con­vict­ed of cap­i­tal mur­der under the fed­er­al death penal­ty statute await their sen­tenc­ing on April 11, Puerto Rican Governor Anibal Acevedo and the Association of American Jurists, a non-gov­­­ern­­­men­­­tal orga­ni­za­tion act­ing as a con­sul­tant at the United Nations, protest­ed the use of the death penal­ty in Puerto Rico. Though Puerto Rico’s Constitution pro­hibits the death penal­ty and its res­i­dents have con­sis­tent­ly voiced strong oppo­si­tion to it, residents…

A two-year study of 11 wrong­ful con­vic­tion cas­es in Virginia found that mis­tak­en eye­wit­ness iden­ti­fi­ca­tion is the major rea­son inno­cent peo­ple have been con­vict­ed in the state. The report’s rec­om­men­da­tions note that Virginia could dra­mat­i­cal­ly reduce the num­ber of wrong­ful con­vic­tions through a series of reforms, such as chang­ing a vari­ety of police pro­ce­dures, relax­ing the state’s 21-day rule to allow evi­dence of inno­cence to be con­sid­ered beyond this…

Recently, var­i­ous vic­tims and rel­a­tives of vic­tims have tes­ti­fied before state leg­is­la­tures con­cern­ing the death penal­ty. In Connecticut, a woman who had been attacked by con­vict­ed mur­der­er Michael Ross, tes­ti­fied that she nev­er­the­less oppos­es his exe­cu­tion. And in North Carolina, the sis­ter of a man who was mur­dered in 2003 urged state leg­is­la­tors to recon­sid­er the death penal­ty.Vivian Dobson, who was attacked by Ross in 1983, said that the death penalty…