Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

Judge Patrick Higginbotham of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5^th Circuit called on Texas to pay more than ​‘lip ser­vice’ to pro­vid­ing indi­vid­u­als fac­ing the death penal­ty with a tru­ly fair and con­sti­tu­tion­al tri­al. He stat­ed that more resources must be placed on train­ing attor­neys and judges at the tri­al lev­el in order to pro­tect against exe­cut­ing the inno­cent. Higginbotham, writ­ing along with attor­ney Mark Curriden of Vinson & Elkins, not­ed that dur­ing the past three years, the U.S.

A fed­er­al appeals court has ruled that Ohio must either retry British for­eign nation­al Kenny Richey with­in 90 days or free him from death row. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6^th Circuit threw out Richey’s 1987 con­vic­tion and death sen­tence in the arson death of 2‑year-old Cynthia Collins, rul­ing that pros­e­cu­tors failed to offer suf­fi­cient evi­dence of Richey’s guilt. The court also found that his court-appoint­ed attorney was ​“out­side the wide range of pro­fes­sion­al­ly competent assistance”…

Former Illinois death row inmate Steven Manning (pic­tured) has been award­ed $6.6 mil­lion in a civ­il law­suit against two FBI agents. A jury found that the agents had framed Manning twice, includ­ing once for mur­der. The jury found FBI agents Robert Buchan and Gary Miller liable of con­coct­ing evi­dence to frame Manning, their one-time infor­mant and a for­mer Chicago police offi­cer, in the mur­der of a truck­ing firm exec­u­tive and in the kid­nap­ping of two Missouri drug deal­ers. Manning’s attorney,…

New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver voiced seri­ous doubts about the neces­si­ty for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in light of its high cost and the alter­na­tive sen­tenc­ing option of life with­out parole. Silver, who sup­port­ed the death penal­ty in the past, said: ​“I have some doubt whether we need a death penal­ty.… We are spend­ing tens of mil­lions of dol­lars [that] may be bet­ter spent on edu­cat­ing chil­dren.” He also remarked that the life-with­­out-parole statute the state now has in place…

On Thursday, January 27, a movie based on the acclaimed play ​“The Exonerated” will air on Court TV at 9 p.m. EST. The movie fea­tures award-win­n­ing actors Susan Sarandon, Danny Glover, Aidan Quinn, Brian Dennehy, Delroy Lindo, and David Brown, Jr. giv­ing voice to the trou­bling sto­ries of six per­sons orig­i­nal­ly con­demned to death but who have since been freed from death row. It fol­lows the orig­i­nal the­ater script by Jessica Blank and Erik…

A three-part series appear­ing in the Cleveland Plain Dealer exam­ines the cap­i­tal con­vic­tion of John Spirko, who remains on Ohio’s death row for the 1982 mur­der of Elgin, Ohio post­mas­ter Betty Jane Mottinger. The paper’s inves­ti­ga­tion found that Spirko’s imagination and ​“not much else” had brought him to the brink of exe­cu­tion despite con­cerns of his inno­cence. Shortly after Mottinger’s body was found, Spirko vol­un­tar­i­ly con­tact­ed police to pro­vide infor­ma­tion about the murder.

In a recent op-ed in the Albany Times Union, crim­i­nal jus­tice expert Scott Christianson asked that state lead­ers con­sid­er New York’s well-doc­u­­men­t­ed prob­lems with wrong­ful con­vic­tions before try­ing to fix the state’s uncon­sti­tu­tion­al death penal­ty statute. Christianson, a for­mer state crim­i­nal jus­tice offi­cial, doc­u­ment­ed more than 130 cas­es (most of them involv­ing con­vic­tions since 1980), in which inno­cent per­sons were con­vict­ed (most­ly of mur­der) and sen­tenced to long prison terms in New…

In Kentucky, a Franklin Circuit Court judge will hear evi­dence for pos­si­bly five days in April on whether the state’s method of exe­cut­ing pris­on­ers is humane. Medical experts will tes­ti­fy about the drugs, dosage and train­ing of the peo­ple who admin­is­ter the 3‑drug lethal-injec­­tion cock­tail. Lawyers for con­demned inmates Thomas Clyde Bowling Jr. and Ralph Baze sued the state in August, say­ing Kentucky’s method of exe­cu­tion vio­lates a pris­on­er’s Eighth Amendment right not to be subjected to…

Seven peo­ple on Georgia’s death row are with­out legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion as they face their final rounds of appeal. Georgia does not guar­an­tee pub­licly fund­ed lawyers for death row inmates beyond the first round of appeal. According to many legal experts, includ­ing retired Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice Harold Clark, the fail­ure to pro­vide legal coun­sel increas­es the like­li­hood of a wrongful execution. ​“It’s a very impor­tant check in the sys­tem that’s miss­ing. There can be slips in the…

In a recent Hartford Courant opin­ion piece, psy­chi­a­trist Robert C. Goodwin spoke about the men­tal ill­ness afflict­ing Michael Ross, who is sched­uled for exe­cu­tion in Connecticut on January 26. Dr. Goodwin was a psy­chi­atric con­sul­tant to the state of Connecticut from 1983 – 2001 and took part in Michael Ross’ eval­u­a­tion and treat­ment over the years, appear­ing as an expert wit­ness in Ross’ sec­ond tri­al. Dr. Goodwin believes the exe­cu­tion should be stopped: Although demon­stra­bly sane, Ross…