Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to hear a death row appeal from a Pennsylvania man who main­tains that jurors at his tri­al should have been told that they had the option of sen­tenc­ing him to life with­out parole instead of the death penal­ty. According to the brief filed on behalf of Ronald Rompilla, the jury asked sev­er­al ques­tions dur­ing his tri­al about Rompilla’s ​“future dan­ger­ous­ness,” yet were nev­er told that if sen­tenced to prison he would nev­er be eli­gi­ble for lat­er release. The…

The exe­cu­tion of Rickey Dale Newman in Arkansas, sched­uled for the night of September 28, was stayed by the state Supreme Court. Newman had waived his appeals. Nevertheless, there is evi­dence that he may be men­tal­ly retard­ed. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Atkins v. Virginia (2002) that peo­ple with men­tal retar­da­tion can­not be exe­cut­ed. Newman’s case rais­es the ques­tion of whether a third par­ty can inter­vene to request a stay of exe­cu­tion, even though the defen­dant does not want to appeal…

The North Carolina State bar has rep­ri­mand­ed two for­mer assis­tant attor­ney gen­er­als for with­hold­ing evi­dence that could have pre­vent­ed the wrong­ful con­vic­tion of Alan Gell, who was final­ly freed from death row in 2004 (pic­tured). The State Bar pan­el found that pros­e­cu­tors David Hoke and Debra Graves failed to turn over evi­dence to Gell, did not ade­quate­ly super­vise the con­duct of their chief inves­ti­ga­tor for the case, and brought the judi­cial sys­tem into dis­re­pute by their con­duct.…

When Justice Sandra Day O’Connor was a sen­a­tor in Arizona, one of the peo­ple she asked to draft the state’s death penal­ty law was Rudolph Gerber. She request­ed that he ​“write a law we can live with.” Mr. Gerber went on to become a pros­e­cu­tor, an Arizona tri­al judge, and even­tu­al­ly a judge on the Arizona Court of Appeals for 13 years. He recent­ly expressed his chang­ing views on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment as he expe­ri­enced how the law was put into practice: ​“My expe­ri­ence, not atyp­i­cal by any means,…

Articles from a symposium entitled ​“Rethinking the Death Penalty: Can We Define Who Deserves Death?” can be found in the Fall 2003 edi­tion of the Pace Law Review. The sym­po­sium, host­ed by the Association of the Bar of the City of New York in May 2002, fea­tured speak­ers Robert Blecker, Jeffrey Kirchmeier, the Honorable William Erlbaum, David Von Drehle, and Jeffrey Fagan. The speak­ers addressed the ques­tion of whether it is pos­si­ble to lim­it the death penal­ty to the ​“worst of the worst”…

The American Correctional Association has recent­ly pub­lished the pro­ceed­ings of their 2003 Annual Conference in Nashville con­tain­ing a pre­sen­ta­tion by DPIC Executive Director Richard Dieter on the death penal­ty. The text of the speech is avail­able on DPIC’s site, click here. The full pub­li­ca­tion is avail­able from the ACA, and also con­tains remarks on the death penal­ty by Prof. John McAdams of Marquette. (The State of Corrections: 2003 Proceedings, ACA Annual Conferences, American…

A new report by The Sentencing Project, ​“The Vanishing Black Electorate: Felony Disenfranchisement in Atlanta, Georgia,” exam­ines the racial effects of depriv­ing cit­i­zens of vot­ing rights because of crim­i­nal con­vic­tions. The report reveals sharp dis­par­i­ties in vot­ing eli­gi­bil­i­ty by race and neigh­bor­hood. Among the report’s key find­ings are the…

Just one day after the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee passed the ​“Advancing Justice Through DNA Technology Act,” a mea­sure that includes the Innocence Protection Act and that ensures access to post-con­vic­­tion DNA test­ing for those in prison with claims of inno­cence, the bill has been incor­po­rat­ed into leg­is­la­tion intro­duced in the House Judiciary Committee. As part of the ​“Justice for All Act of 2004,” the DNA bill is antic­i­pat­ed to quick­ly advance to the House floor for a…

An autop­sy of the last man exe­cut­ed in Kentucky, Edward L. Harper, found only 3 to 6.5 mil­ligrams per liter of bar­bi­tu­rate in Harper’s blood – a lev­el leav­ing a high chance that Harper was con­scious through­out the exe­cu­tion and that he felt pain when he was inject­ed with sub­se­quent drugs that par­a­lyzed and suf­fo­cat­ed him, and then stopped his heart. Dr. Mark Dershwitz, the pros­e­cu­tion expert who devel­oped the stan­dards that Kentucky relies upon, said the low lev­el of bar­bi­tu­rate found in Mr.