Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

Kansas law­mak­ers have decid­ed not to vote on a pro­posed fix to the state’s death penal­ty statute, a deci­sion that could put the future of the law in the hands of the U.S. Supreme Court. In 2004, the Kansas Supreme Court over­turned the death penal­ty because of the way jurors were instruct­ed in cap­i­tal cas­es. Some leg­is­la­tors are hop­ing that the U.S. Supreme Court will reverse the Kansas court’s deci­sion. It could be months before the U.S. Supreme Court decides whether to take the case. Until…

Retired New York prison super­in­ten­dent Stephen Dalsheim recent­ly cau­tioned leg­is­la­tors about re-instat­ing the death penal­ty, not­ing his con­cerns about inno­cence and the toll exe­cu­tions take on prison employees. ​“You know, as I grow old­er, I real­ize maybe we can get beyond vengeance,” Dalsheim said. ​“The death penal­ty is fraught with the pos­si­bil­i­ty that you could exe­cute an inno­cent man. Who could live with that?” Dalsheim tes­ti­fied before a pan­el of state law­mak­ers con­sid­er­ing whether to try…

By a vote of 5 – 4, the U.S. Supreme Court has declared the exe­cu­tion of juve­nile offend­ers to be uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. Today’s his­toric rul­ing in Roper v. Simmons holds that this prac­tice vio­lates the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ments. The deci­sion will result in a new sen­tence for Christopher Simmons and like­ly new sen­tences for the 71 oth­er juve­nile offend­ers cur­rent­ly on state death rows across the coun­try. Simmons’ posi­tion was joined by many professional organizations…

A recent New York Times poll found that 56% of sur­veyed New York vot­ers pre­fer a sen­tence of life in prison (either with­out parole or with the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole) over the death penal­ty for peo­ple con­vict­ed of mur­der. Only 34% said they sup­port­ed the death penal­ty, a sig­nif­i­cant drop from the 48% who sup­port­ed it in 1994, just pri­or to New York’s rein­state­ment of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. This shift against the death penal­ty comes as state law­mak­ers are con­sid­er­ing whether to aban­don or try to…

A new American Bar Association study has found that thou­sands of sus­pects, includ­ing some who are lat­er giv­en death sen­tences, risk wrong­ful con­vic­tion because they are pres­sured to accept guilty pleas or have incom­pe­tent attor­neys. After sur­vey­ing 22 states, the ABA com­mit­tee lead­ing the study stat­ed that legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion for indi­gent defen­dants is in ​“a state of crisis.“In its report, the ABA fea­tured a num­ber of wrong­ful con­vic­tion cas­es, includ­ing the recent release of Lousiana death…

Three-quar­ters of Americans believe that an inno­cent per­son has been exe­cut­ed with­in the last five years and that con­vic­tion is result­ing in low­er lev­els of sup­port for the death penal­ty, accord­ing to a study pub­lished in the February issue of Criminology & Public Policy. The study, con­duct­ed by researchers James D. Unnever of Radford University and Francis T. Cullen of the University of Cincinnati, found that sup­port for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment was sig­nif­i­cant­ly low­er among both blacks and…

Nancy Filiault, whose sis­ter was mur­dered in 2000, tes­ti­fied that she oppos­es cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment because the legal process fur­ther trau­ma­tizes vic­tims’ fam­i­lies. At the con­clu­sion of a Judiciary Committee hear­ing on leg­is­la­tion intro­duced to replace Connecticut’s death penal­ty with a life-with­­out-parole sen­tence, Filiault said that sit­ting through the cap­i­tal tri­al of the man charged with the murder was ​“heinous, incred­i­bly cru­el, and trau­ma­tiz­ing.” The defen­dant, who con­fessed to the crime,…

A record 110 per­sons aged 60 and old­er were on death rows across the United States at the end of 2003, a num­ber that is near­ly triple the 39 death row seniors count­ed nine years ago by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, accord­ing to an arti­cle in USA Today. In many states, elder­ly pris­on­ers who are not on death row are housed in geri­atric facil­i­ties with­in pris­ons or they are placed in ​“end of life” pro­grams, but these pro­grams are not offered to seniors fac­ing the death penal­ty. The condemned…

During his recent State of the Union address before Congress, President George W. Bush raised con­cerns about race, wrong­ful con­vic­tions, and ade­quate rep­re­sen­ta­tion for those fac­ing the death…

Key mem­bers of the New York Legislature who sup­port­ed the death penal­ty when it was rein­stat­ed in 1995 have changed their posi­tions and now favor let­ting the law expire. Joseph Lentol, Chair of the Codes Committee of the N.Y. Assembly, says he now sup­ports life with­out parole instead of restor­ing the death penal­ty for which he vot­ed in 1995. His announce­ment came at the con­clu­sion of hear­ings into the issue. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver stat­ed that he will not be pres­sured into having the…