Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

According to an Iranian jus­tice depart­ment spokesper­son, the Iranian Parliament is expect­ed to approve leg­is­la­tion that would end the death penal­ty for offend­ers under the age of 18. The mea­sure would also pro­hib­it lash­ings for those under 18. Under pres­sure from the European Union to reform its human rights record, Iran has had no record­ed ston­ings since late 2002, and the par­lia­ment has enact­ed laws ban­ning tor­ture and the uphold­ing of cit­i­zens’ rights. (AFP, October 26, 2004). The U.S.

Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, the Catholic Archbishop of Washington and act­ing as Chairman of the Domestic Policy Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, has urged House and Senate con­fer­ees work­ing on anti-ter­ror­ism leg­is­la­tion to report out a final bill that would not expand the fed­er­al death penal­ty for ter­ror­ists. McCarrick wrote a let­ter to House and Senate lead­ers craft­ing their final ver­sion of the National Intelligence Reform Act (S. 2845).

As Maryland Circuit Court Judge Steven I. Platt signed a death war­rant sched­ul­ing the exe­cu­tion of Heath W. Burch for the week of December 6, a Potomac Inc. poll of state res­i­dents revealed that only 53% sup­port cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Burch has been on death row since 1996 and would be the first per­son since 1953 to be exe­cut­ed for a crime com­mit­ted in Prince George’s County. Experts pre­dict that his exe­cu­tion would be met with resis­tance from coun­ty res­i­dents, 50% of whom oppose capital…

During a recent speech at Georgetown Law School, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor empha­sized the grow­ing impor­tance of inter­na­tion­al law in U.S. courts, say­ing judges would be neg­li­gent if they dis­re­gard­ed its impor­tance in a post-September 11^th world of height­ened ten­sions. O’Connor said the Supreme Court is tak­ing cas­es that demand a bet­ter under­stand­ing of for­eign legal sys­tems, noting, ​“International law is no longer a spe­cial­ty. … It is vital if judges are to faithfully…

Judge Tom Price, a 30-year vet­er­an Republican jurist on Texas’s high­est crim­i­nal court, recent­ly stat­ed that those on the state’s death row con­vict­ed with evi­dence from the Houston Police Department crime lab should not be exe­cut­ed until ques­tions about its work are resolved. Price called for a lim­it­ed mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions, say­ing, ​“I think it would be pru­dent to delay fur­ther exe­cu­tions until we have had a chance to have this evi­dence inde­pen­dent­ly ver­i­fied. Once a death sentence…

In ​“No Justice: No Victory — The Death Penalty in Texas,” author Susan Lee Campbell Solar exam­ines cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in Texas through a polit­i­cal lens and with a con­cen­tra­tion on cas­es and anec­dotes that illus­trate the sys­temic flaws she uncov­ered dur­ing her research. The book, com­plet­ed by friends and fam­i­ly of the author after she died unex­pect­ed­ly, fea­tures inter­views with attor­neys, judges and law pro­fes­sors, as well as with those on death row, their fam­i­ly mem­bers, and families…

As part of its five-part series on foren­sic sci­ence and wrong­ful con­vic­tions, the Chicago Tribune exam­ined how sci­en­tif­ic devel­op­ments in fire inves­ti­ga­tions have called into ques­tion cru­cial expert tes­ti­mo­ny in many cas­es, includ­ing some death penal­ty pros­e­cu­tions. As a result of untest­ed the­o­ries, shod­dy analy­sis and a resis­tance to rig­or­ous review, long-time arson inves­ti­ga­tors are now see­ing their con­clu­sions con­tra­dict­ed by col­leagues who ques­tion the reli­a­bil­i­ty of the folk wisdom that…

A group of 450 attor­neys par­tic­i­pat­ing in the Conference of Delegates of the California Bar Association has urged a mora­to­ri­um on the death penal­ty in California until the state reviews whether cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment laws are enforced fair­ly and uniformly. ​“If you make a mis­take, it’s not like you can go back and cor­rect a mis­take because the per­son is dead,” said Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Danette Meyers, sup­port­er of the mea­sure and a mem­ber of the Bar…

During the past 15 years, the num­ber of African nations aban­don­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment has risen from one to 10, and anoth­er 10 nations have abol­ished the death penal­ty in prac­tice accord­ing to a recent tal­ly by Amnesty International. As this trend toward abol­ish­ing the death penal­ty con­tin­ues, few­er Africans than ever are being exe­cut­ed by their gov­ern­ments. The anti-cap­i­­tal pun­ish­ment move­ment has been espe­cial­ly pow­er­ful in West Africa, where the num­ber of coun­tries in the Economic…

A five-part Chicago Tribune inves­ti­ga­tion of foren­sics in the court­room has revealed that flawed test­ing analy­sis, ques­tion­able sci­ence once con­sid­ered reli­able, and shod­dy crime lab prac­tices can often lead to wrong­ful con­vic­tions. Developments in DNA tech­nol­o­gy have helped shed new light on these prob­lems by reveal­ing the shaky sci­en­tif­ic foun­da­tions of tech­niques like fin­ger­print­ing, firearm iden­ti­fi­ca­tion, arson inves­ti­ga­tion, and bite-mark com­par­i­son. A review of 200 DNA and death row…