Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

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.

A new report from the Washington Death Penalty Assistance Center reviews the effi­cien­cy of Washington State’s death penal­ty sys­tem. The report includes an overview of Washington’s statute and an expla­na­tion of the dif­fer­ences between cap­i­tal and non-cap­i­­tal cas­es, demon­strat­ing why cap­i­tal cas­es require sig­nif­i­cant­ly greater resources. The authors report that: o Of death penal­ty cas­es that com­plet­ed the appeals process, 81% were over­turned after errors were found. When those cas­es were tried…

In the lat­est National Crime Victimization Survey, the Bureau of Justice Statistics report­ed that the U.S. mur­der rate for 2003 was about 5.6 per 100,000 per­sons, unchanged from 2001 and 2002. Of the vic­tims of mur­der, approx­i­mate­ly 49% were white and 49% were black. (DPIC note: While the report found that the race of vic­tims is even­ly split nation­al­ly, vic­tims in death penal­ty cas­es are most­ly white (about 81%)). In mur­der cas­es, 76% of the offend­ers were known to the vic­tim, and 24% of…

New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, a long time sup­port­er of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, called for New York’s leg­is­la­ture to step back and more thor­ough­ly review the state’s death penal­ty sys­tem, which has not result­ed in any exe­cu­tions and has cost the state more than $170 mil­lion in the last decade. Speaker Silver said that his cham­ber would not fol­low the lead of the state Senate, which passed an amend­ment to fix the state’s death penal­ty law with­out hear­ings. ​“After 10 years of…

The Death Penatly Information Center has issued a new report, Innocence and the Crisis in the American Death Penalty, cat­a­loging 116 cas­es of for­mer death row inmates who have been exon­er­at­ed in 25 states since 1973. The report also notes that as the num­ber of inno­cent peo­ple freed from death row has risen and become more pub­lic in recent years, there has been a dra­mat­ic drop in death sen­tences around the coun­try. The num­ber of death sen­tences, which have been steadi­ly dropping since…

A new biog­ra­phy by Tim Junkin enti­tled Bloodsworth: The True Story of the First Death Row Inmate Exonerated by DNA recounts the events that led first to the con­vic­tion and death sen­tence, and then to the free­ing of Kirk Bloodsworth for the mur­der of a nine-year-old girl in Maryland. Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking describes the book as ​“Chilling, heart­break­ing, and ulti­mate­ly inspir­ing.” Scott Turow says: ​“Bloodsworth is a tale of courage and deter­mi­na­tion in the face…

Thomas F. Kelaher, the new pres­i­dent of the County Prosecutors Association of New Jersey, said that it is time to start rethink­ing the use of the death penal­ty in the state. Although Kelaher is a sup­port­er of the death penal­ty, he noted: ​“If the death penal­ty has­n’t been used in 20 years, soci­ety should ask if it should be con­tin­ued. It was sup­posed to act as a deter­rent. If it has­n’t been used in 20 years, you real­ly can’t say it’s a deter­rent.” Kelaher expressed concern…

Presentations at DePaul University’s sym­po­sium on Race and the Death Penalty were recent­ly pub­lished in the university’s Law Review. National experts exam­ined sta­tis­ti­cal evi­dence and atti­tudes regard­ing race dis­crim­i­na­tion in the cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem. A keynote address was deliv­ered by Bryan Stevenson, Director of the Equal Justice Initiative in Alabama, and for­mer Governor George Ryan gave the clos­ing remarks. To read DPIC’s sum­ma­ry of the arti­cles click here. To obtain the…

Despite broad bipar­ti­san Congressional sup­port for the Advancing Justice Through DNA Technology Act, which includes the ​“Innocence Protection Act” (IPA) to help states pay for the costs of post-con­vic­­tion DNA test­ing, the Senate Judiciary Committee has delayed action on the bill. Kirk Bloodsworth (pic­tured), whose name accom­pa­nies the IPA, urged Congress to act: ​“Nobody should have to wait for jus­tice. I strug­gled for near­ly 20 years to clear my name. This leg­is­la­tion will prevent innocent…