Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

Of the 63 death sen­tences hand­ed down since New Jersey rein­stat­ed cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in 1982, 47 have been over­turned, includ­ing that of Robert Marshall, whose death sen­tence was reversed on April 8^th by a fed­er­al court. Marshall had been on New Jersey’s death row longer than any oth­er inmate pri­or to the vacat­ing of his sen­tence. New Jersey has not car­ried out an exe­cu­tion since bring­ing back the death penal­ty. It cur­rent­ly has 11 inmates on death row, and no exe­cu­tions are sched­uled at this…

The Bureau of Justice Statistics’ Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics 2002 con­tains its lat­est cat­a­log of data on crime, the admin­is­tra­tion of jus­tice, and pub­lic atti­tudes toward crim­i­nal jus­tice issues such as the death penal­ty. For exam­ple, a grow­ing num­ber of Americans sup­port the sen­tence of life with­out parole over the death penal­ty. In 1985, a Gallup Poll found that 34% of those polled favored life in prison with­out parole. This lat­est edi­tion of the Sourcebook…

A fed­er­al judge in Memphis has blocked the exe­cu­tion of Philip Workman (pic­tured), a Tennessee man who has been on death row for more than 20 years despite evi­dence that he did not shoot the vic­tim who was killed. Workman’s exe­cu­tion, sched­uled for September 22, was delayed pend­ing the results of a fed­er­al review of anoth­er Tennessee case that could affect Workman’s lat­est appeals. (New Channel 5 News in Tennessee, September 2, 2004). Workman was con­vict­ed in 1981 of the mur­der of police…

The Summer 2004 Drake Law Review includes arti­cles based on a recent Symposium on Wrongful Convictions fea­tur­ing some of the nation’s lead­ing experts on inno­cence and the death penal­ty. The arti­cles pro­vide a detailed overview of the issue of inno­cence and exam­ine wrong­ful con­vic­tions from a num­ber of per­sec­tives, includ­ing the role of crim­i­nal case review in cor­rect­ing mis­car­riages of jus­tice, the need to record police inter­ro­ga­tions, the impact of inno­cence on vic­tims’ family…

By a vote of 23 – 12, the California Senate passed a res­o­lu­tion estab­lish­ing the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice, a pan­el of experts who will inves­ti­gate the state’s crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem and present a series of rec­om­men­da­tions to the leg­is­la­ture and gov­er­nor based on their find­ings. Members of the pan­el will be appoint­ed by the Senate Committee on Rules and will be charged with hold­ing a series of meet­ings and pub­lic hear­ings to deter­mine why innocent…

An op-ed in Oregon’s Albany Democrat Herald called on the state to re-think its reliance on the death penal­ty: 20 years after vot­ers in Oregon rein­stat­ed the death penal­ty, it is time to take a dis­pas­sion­ate look and con­clude that it has­n’t done much good. In the gen­er­al elec­tion of 1984, Oregon vot­ers over­whelm­ing­ly called for the death penal­ty to be resumed. 2 ini­tia­tives were on the bal­lot that year. One, call­ing for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment or manda­to­ry life sen­tences for aggravated murder,…

The dis­cov­ery of 280 unopened and mis­la­beled box­es of evi­dence found in the Houston Crime Lab’s prop­er­ty room could impact as many as 8,000 cas­es, includ­ing many cas­es where defen­dants have sought evi­dence to prove their inno­cence. Investigators began sort­ing through the box­es this month, find­ing an array of evi­dence that ranged from a fetus and human body parts to clothes and a bag of Cheetos. Although the box­es were locat­ed near­ly a year ago, the cat­a­loging of their con­tents has just begun…

In the two weeks since India’s first hang­ing in 13 years, two chil­dren have died and a third young boy was near­ly killed as a result of imi­tat­ing the high­ly pub­li­cized exe­cu­tion. A 14-year-old boy died after he tied one end of a rope around his neck and swung the oth­er end on a ceil­ing fan in his home to re-enact the exe­cu­tion. The boy’s father said that his son was very curi­ous about the nation’s first exe­cu­tion and had close­ly fol­lowed the days lead­ing up to it by watch­ing news accounts.

Death sen­tences have declined across the coun­try. The fol­low­ing four cas­es are recent illus­tra­tions of this…

The San Mateo County District Attorney’s Office reflect­ed on a num­ber of fac­tors in decid­ing to forego seek­ing a death sen­tence for Seti Christopher Scanlan, whose first tri­al end­ed in a mis­tri­al after he took the stand and begged jurors to sen­tence him to death. Prosecutors are now seek­ing a sen­tence of life in prison for Scanlan after concluding that ​“it was not rea­son­ably like­ly that we would get a jury that would deliv­er the death penal­ty.” The case has already cost tax­pay­ers more than…