Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

New York’s death penal­ty remains in abeyance, hav­ing been found uncon­sti­tu­tion­al by the state’s high court. A recent N.Y. Newsday edi­to­r­i­al called on law­mak­ers to care­ful­ly exam­ine the fun­da­men­tal prob­lems with the death penal­ty before con­sid­er­ing any rein­state­ment leg­is­la­tion. The edi­to­r­i­al not­ed: On the steps of New York City Hall on Thursday, a coali­tion of death penal­ty oppo­nents — promi­nent­ly includ­ing City Council Speaker Gifford Miller and former…

As the Supreme Court heard argu­ments in the case of Roper v. Simmons on October 13, news­pa­pers through­out the coun­try fea­tured edi­to­ri­als and opin­ion pieces call­ing on the U.S. to aban­don the prac­tice of exe­cut­ing juve­nile offend­ers:The New York Times When the Supreme Court con­sid­ers an Eighth Amendment chal­lenge, it looks to​“evolv­ing stan­dards of decen­cy” — and there has been a steady move­ment nation­al­ly away from the juve­nile death penal­ty. In the…

Following a call from the Houston Police Chief and from state leg­is­la­tors to halt exe­cu­tions in cas­es from Harris County, four of the state’s largest news­pa­pers pub­lished edi­to­ri­als in sup­port of a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions. The Houston police crime lab has been plagued with errors in DNA test­ing and preser­va­tion of evi­dence. There have been far more exe­cu­tions from Harris County (Houston) than from any oth­er coun­ty in the coun­try. AUSTIN AMERICAN-STATESMAN (N)othing…

In ​“Waiting to Die: Life on Death Row,” Richard M. Rossi pro­vides a first-hand account of his dai­ly life on Arizona’s death row. Rossi was sen­tenced to death in 1983 and has tak­en respon­si­bil­i­ty for the mur­der he com­mit­ted. He was orig­i­nal­ly offered a plea bar­gain with a life sen­tence, but he decid­ed to go to tri­al. He has been on death row for 20 years. In his book, Rossi details how pris­on­ers sur­vive on death row, the con­di­tions under which they live, and the…

On October 9, the U.S. Senate passed by voice vote a bill called the​“Justice for All Act of 2004” that con­tains impor­tant ele­ments of the Innocence Protection Act, orig­i­nal­ly intro­duced in 2000. A sim­i­lar bill recent­ly over­whelm­ing­ly passed the House of Representatives (HR 5107), and it is expect­ed that the final leg­is­la­tion will now be signed into law. The bill pro­vides for expand­ed access to DNA test­ing for prison inmates and assis­tance to states for both…

A deeply divid­ed U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled 8 – 7 that the exe­cu­tion of Tennessee death row inmate Paul Gregory House may move for­ward despite the fact that near­ly half of the judges believe he is not guilty and should be freed imme­di­ate­ly.​“We are faced with a real-life mur­der mys­tery, an authen­tic​‘who-done-it’ where the wrong man may be exe­cut­ed,” wrote dis­sent­ing judge Ronald Lee Gilman. A N.Y. Times arti­cle not­ed that although courts are often…

A recent­ly pub­lished study by Northeastern crim­i­nal jus­tice pro­fes­sors William J. Bowers and Michael E. Antonio, in con­junc­tion with University of Delaware pro­fes­sors Valerie P. Hans and Benjamin D. Fleury-Steiner, finds jurors very reluc­tant to give the death penal­ty to juve­nile defen­dants because of their imma­tu­ri­ty and dys­func­tion­al fam­i­ly back­grounds. “ In inter­view­ing almost 1,200 jurors, we’ve found that jurors across the nation would near­ly always sentence…

In a forth­com­ing arti­cle, Columbia University researchers found that, since 1994, when death sen­tences for juve­nile offend­ers peaked, these sen­tences have declined sig­nif­i­cant­ly. In par­tic­u­lar, the decline in juve­nile death sen­tences since 1999 is sta­tis­ti­cal­ly sig­nif­i­cant after con­trol­ling for the mur­der rate, the juve­nile homi­cide arrest rate, and the rate of adult death sen­tences. This down­ward trend in juve­nile death sen­tences is indica­tive of an…