Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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.

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…

A recent report issued by the Kansas Judicial Council Death Penalty Advisory Committee exam­ines the state’s appli­ca­tion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment and the hefty price tag of seek­ing the death penal­ty. The Committee found that since Kansas rein­stat­ed the death penal­ty in 1994 there were 44 poten­tial cap­i­tal cas­es involv­ing minor­i­ty vic­tims. However, none of these cas­es result­ed in a death sen­tence. Of the eight defen­dants in Kansas who did receive death sen­tences, all of…

Just days before the sched­uled exe­cu­tion of Donald Beardslee in California, the Los Angeles Times has called for his clemen­cy while ques­tion­ing the even-hand­ed­­­ness of the whole sys­tem. The edi­to­r­i­al con­cludes that the death penal­ty is a​“lie” to the peo­ple of California: Donald Beardslee was 38 years old in 1981 when he shot one woman and stran­gled and slashed anoth­er in San Mateo County, retal­i­a­tion for a soured drug deal. He is now 61. So many years have passed since…

Following a manslaugh­ter con­vic­tion for a crime com­mit­ted when he was 19 years old in Louisiana in 1961, Wilbert Rideau, the acclaimed prison jour­nal­ist, was set free by the tri­al judge on Saturday, January 15. His con­vic­tion car­ries a max­i­mum sen­tence of 21 years and Rideau has already served 44 years in prison, pri­mar­i­ly in Angola. Rideau, who is black, was orig­i­nal­ly con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death by an all-white, all-male jury for killing a white woman. His death…