Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

A recent Gallup Poll mea­sur­ing pub­lic opin­ion regard­ing the death penal­ty revealed a decline in sup­port for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. The poll found that 66% of Americans sup­port the death penal­ty for those con­vict­ed of mur­der, down 5% from an ear­li­er 2004 poll and sig­nif­i­cant­ly low­er than the high of 80% in 1994. In an analy­sis of Gallup polls on this ques­tion from 2001 to 2004, women were more like­ly to oppose the death penal­ty than men. Among African-American respon­dents, 49% opposed the death…

Charles Walker is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed in North Carolina on December 3 for the 1992 mur­der of Elmon Davidson. His con­vic­tion rests sole­ly on the tes­ti­mo­ny of snitch tes­ti­mo­ny because author­i­ties were unable to find Davidson’s body or any evi­dence link­ing Walker to the crime. Walker’s attor­neys have asked North Carolina Governor Mike Easley to grant clemen­cy for their client and to reduce his sen­tence to life in prison with­out parole. Walker was con­vict­ed on the tes­ti­mo­ny of five witnesses…

According to promi­nent New York law­mak­ers, there is lit­tle chance that leg­is­la­tors will pass a bill this year to fix the state’s uncon­sti­tu­tion­al death penal­ty. Many experts believe that the state’s statute, which N.Y.‘s high­est court struck down ear­li­er this year, may nev­er be re-enac­t­ed. Republican Senator Dale M. Volker not­ed that when the Court of Appeals struck down the law, New York heard ​“the death knell of the death penal­ty, for the time being.” Sheldon Silver, the Democratic Speaker…

Editorials in papers around the coun­try have not­ed that many Americans are rethink­ing the death penal­ty because it is deeply flawed. Among the recent edi­to­r­i­al obser­va­tions were the fol­low­ing: New Jersey’s Star-Ledger Fewer peo­ple are being giv­en the death penal­ty in the United States, accord­ing to the Justice Department, which says such sen­tences are at a 30-year low. Last year, the num­ber of peo­ple who were sen­tenced to die totaled 144. While these num­bers are heart­en­ing in that they…

According to a recent news report, Indiana tax­pay­ers spend mil­lions of dol­lars to send dozens of peo­ple to death row, but more than half of those sen­tenced have had their con­vic­tions over­turned or their sen­tences vacat­ed. In addi­tion, the ris­ing costs of the death penal­ty have result­ed in a more arbi­trary appli­ca­tion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment due to fund­ing con­straints in cer­tain rur­al coun­ties, a fact that has many state res­i­dents ques­tion­ing the pun­ish­men­t’s true val­ue. Defense expenses in…

With bipar­ti­san sup­port, Ohio’s House of Representatives passed a bill to cre­ate an 18-mem­ber com­mit­tee to con­duct an exhaus­tive study of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the state. Under the bill, which passed by a vote of 64 – 30 in the Republican-con­trolled House, the com­mit­tee would exam­ine all cap­i­tal tri­als since the state rein­stat­ed the pun­ish­ment in 1981. The com­mit­tee would exam­ine issues such as race, gen­der, and the eco­nom­ic sta­tus of defen­dants and their vic­tims. It would also investigate…

Former Missouri Supreme Court Chief Justice Charles Blackmar recent­ly reit­er­at­ed his oppo­si­tion to the death penal­ty and his con­cerns about wrong­ful con­vic­tions, not­ing that the exon­er­a­tion of Missouri death row inmate Joseph Amrine ​“makes me won­der how many peo­ple there are who were wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed.” Amrine spent 26 years in prison, 17 of them on death row, before his con­vic­tion was over­turned and he was released in July 2003. ​“The les­son is that peo­ple were persuaded eventually…

The lat­est edi­tion of The American Prospect fea­tures a series of arti­cles by promi­nent writ­ers and human rights lead­ers regard­ing the effect of the inter­na­tion­al move­ment for human rights on the U.S. Two of the arti­cles high­light U.S. death penal­ty poli­cies. Yale Law School Dean Harold Hongju Koh points out the con­flict between the U.S.‘s efforts to sup­port inter­na­tion­al human rights and our domes­tic prac­tices such as the use of the juve­nile death penalty. ​“In my view, by far the most…

Mirroring sta­tis­tics released this year in the Death Penalty Information Center’s Innocence Report, the Justice Department’s Capital Punishment, 2003 revealed that the nation’s death row is con­tin­u­ing to decline and that the amount of time between death sen­tenc­ing and exe­cu­tion has increased. Compiled by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the report not­ed that 3,374 inmates were on death row at the con­clu­sion of 2003, 188 few­er than a year ear­li­er. It also…