Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

California already has the largest death row in the coun­try and is now plan­ning to build a new $220 mil­lion facil­i­ty designed to house more than 1,400 death row inmates. State Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald M. George said that the large death row reflects the con­se­quences of a care­ful appeals process that is designed to ensure due process for those fac­ing exe­cu­tion.​“The virtues of the sys­tem also rep­re­sent its vices because it does end up caus­ing a lot of delay,” stated…

The Kansas Supreme Court has ruled that the state’s 1994 death penal­ty law is uncon­sti­tu­tion­al because it con­tains a pro­vi­sion giv­ing the state an advan­tage when jurors find the aggra­vat­ing and mit­i­gat­ing fac­tors pre­sent­ed at sen­tenc­ing to be equal. In that cir­cum­stance, the cur­rent law states that the defen­dant must be sen­tenced to death. The Court ruled that such a pro­vi­sion does not allow the jury to express a rea­soned moral response to the evi­dence, and the…

As New York law­mak­ers con­duct­ed the first in a series of hear­ings on the state’s death penal­ty, Robert M. Morgenthau, Manhattan’s long-serv­ing District Attorney, rec­om­mend­ed that New York aban­don the prac­tice:​“It’s the deed that teach­es, not the name we give it,” Morgenthau said, quot­ing George Bernard Shaw. He went on to note, ​“The penal­ty exacts a ter­ri­ble price in dol­lars, lives, and human decen­cy. Rather than tamp­ing down the flames of vio­lence, it fuels…

Andrew Cuomo (pic­tured), who served as U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development from 1997 to 2001, recent­ly urged New York law­mak­ers to put an end to the death penal­ty. The state is hold­ing hear­ings on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the wake of a N.Y. Court of Appeals deci­sion find­ing the statute uncon­sti­tu­tion­al ear­li­er this year. In his op-ed in The New York Times, Cuomo not­ed: The Democrats, who con­trol the Assembly, should make it clear that they will not pass a new…

Read the Press Release. Copies may be obtained by con­tact­ing DPIC. The report will be post­ed on our Web site in…

On December 13, 2004, the U. S. Supreme Court ruled that the effec­tive­ness of defense coun­sel’s per­for­mance must be judged by stan­dards pre­vi­ous­ly set out by the Court in Strickland v. Washington. In Florida v. Nixon, Joe Nixon’s attor­ney told the jury his client was guilty with­out his clien­t’s express con­sent. After the jury sen­tenced Nixon to death, the Florida Supreme Court over­turned Nixon’s con­vic­tion, hold­ing that coun­sel’s con­ces­sion of guilt automatically fell…

On December 10, 2004 (Human Rights Day), the United States Supreme Court agreed to hear the case of Jose Medellin to deter­mine what effect the United States should give to a recent rul­ing by the International Court of Justice at the Hague, the United Nations’ high­est court. In the case of Medellin and 50 oth­er Mexican nation­als on death row, the World Court ruled that the U.S. failed to inform Mexico of their arrests, in vio­la­tion of the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations.

The Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University School of Law has released a new report enti­tled, The Snitch System: How Snitch Testimony Sent Randy Steidl and Other Innocent Americans to Death Row. The report high­lights 51 cas­es of Americans who were wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed and giv­en death sen­tences based on the tes­ti­mo­ny of wit­ness­es with incen­tives to lie. According to the Center, snitch tes­ti­mo­ny is the pri­ma­ry cause for approx­i­mate­ly 45% of all…

After exam­in­ing evi­dence from the cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tion of Cameron Willingham (pic­tured), four nation­al arson experts have con­clud­ed that the orig­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion of Willingham’s case was flawed and it is pos­si­ble the fire was acci­den­tal. The inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tion, report­ed by the Chicago Tribune, found that pros­e­cu­tors and arson inves­ti­ga­tors used arson the­o­ries that have since been repu­di­at­ed by sci­en­tif­ic advances. Willingham was…

Three Texas death row appeals con­sid­ered dur­ing the past year by the U.S. Supreme Court have result­ed in sharp rever­sals, per­haps indi­cat­ing an increas­ing impa­tience with two of the courts that han­dle death penal­ty cas­es from Texas: the Court of Criminal Appeals, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. In one of the Supreme Court opin­ions, the Court con­clud­ed that the Fifth Circuit was only​“pay­ing lip ser­vice to prin­ci­ples” of appel­late law in…