Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

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…

Bill Pelke tells of the life-alter­ing trans­for­ma­tion that occurred after his 78-year-old grand­moth­er was mur­dered by four teen-aged girls in his book, Journey of Hope…From Violence to Healing. Though at first he sup­port­ed the death penal­ty for 15-year-old Paula Cooper, one of the young girls who had mur­dered his grand­moth­er in her home for $10 and an old car, he lat­er opposed her exe­cu­tion and suc­cess­ful­ly fought to have Cooper’s death sen­tence over­turned. The book…

The Florida Supreme Court has vacat­ed James Floyd’s 1985 con­vic­tion and death sen­tence, rul­ing that crit­i­cal evi­dence was with­held by the pros­e­cu­tion and that the evi­dence might have been enough to change the ver­dict at tri­al. In its 4 – 2 deci­sion, the Court ruled that the pros­e­cu­tor’s fail­ure to inform Floyd’s defense coun­sel that an eye­wit­ness had seen two white men enter­ing the vic­tim’s home on the day of the mur­der and saw them leave in a suspicious manner…

The Death Penalty Information Center Web site con­tains sum­maries of the issues in upcom­ing Supreme Court argu­ments relat­ed to the death penal­ty, as well as sum­maries of recent Supreme Court decisions.

A recent arti­cle in the Western New England Law Review exam­ines ways in which the rules of evi­dence and pro­ce­dures at cap­i­tal sen­tenc­ing tri­als are less rig­or­ous than those applied at the guilt-phase of the tri­al. In cap­i­tal sen­tenc­ing hear­ings, evi­dence is per­mit­ted that would not be admis­si­ble to prove guilt. The defen­dant does not receive tra­di­tion­al tri­al pro­tec­tions at the sen­tenc­ing tri­al. For exam­ple, hearsay may be received by the jury during…