Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

A tele­vi­sion Mini-series based on the fic­tion nov­el​“Reversible Errors,” a best-sel­l­­ing book by award-win­n­ing author and cap­i­tal defense attor­ney Scott Turow, will air on CBS on Sunday May 23, and Tuesday May 25, 2004. The sto­ry is about a cor­po­rate lawyer whose world is turned upside-down when he is assigned to draft the final appeal of a poten­tial­ly inno­cent inmate near­ing his exe­cu­tion date. Although​“Reversible Errors” is not about an actu­al cap­i­tal case in the…

During a​“fire­side chat” with fel­low Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer and hun­dreds of lawyers and judges who prac­tice in fed­er­al courts in Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin, Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens stat­ed,​“I think this coun­try would be much bet­ter off if we did not have cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment.” Stevens not­ed that he believes the death penal­ty is con­sti­tu­tion­al, adding,​“But I real­ly think it’s a very unfor­tu­nate part of our judi­cial sys­tem and I would…

Scientists who are skep­ti­cal of Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney’s claim that DNA is​“infal­li­ble” evi­dence in a death penal­ty case have voiced con­cern about the assump­tion, not­ing that there is no way to avoid all pos­si­ble instances of human error and that the evi­dence does not always prove a person’s guilt or inno­cence. Theodore D. Kessis is the founder of Applied DNA Resources, based in Columbus, Ohio, and a fac­ul­ty mem­ber at the John Hopkins School of Public Health in…

New York reli­gious lead­ers rep­re­sent­ing a range of faiths and regions recent­ly unit­ed to voice their oppo­si­tion to the death penal­ty and to encour­age a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions so that issues of fair­ness and accu­ra­cy may be addressed. A state­ment issued by the group not­ed: “[O]ur nation’s con­tin­ued reliance on the death penal­ty is extreme­ly cost­ly, inef­fec­tive in fight­ing crime, unequal­ly applied, and hand­ed out with alarm­ing fre­quen­cy to defen­dants who are…

During the past 10 years, most Commonwealth African coun­tries have moved toward abol­ish­ing the death penal­ty and today almost half of these coun­tries have aban­doned the prac­tice accord­ing to Amnesty International. Government lead­ers from around the con­ti­nent recent­ly met in Entebbe, Uganda, for a two-day sum­mit to dis­cuss cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Five Southern African Development Countries have abol­ished cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, and the num­ber of coun­tries end­ing the death…

The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board has vot­ed to rec­om­mend clemen­cy for death row inmate Osbaldo Torres, a Mexican for­eign nation­al who is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed on May 18. The Board made its deci­sion after an hour-long hear­ing that includ­ed tes­ti­mo­ny from Carlos de Icaza, Mexican Ambassador to the United States. Icaza told the board that Mexico oppos­es cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in all cas­es, and that this case was par­tic­u­lar­ly trou­ble­some because no proof…

“America’s Death Penalty: Beyond Repair?” exam­ines cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the U.S. since 1976 through a vari­ety of schol­ar­ly essays that look at crit­i­cal issues such as inno­cence, race, arbi­trari­ness, and inter­na­tion­al human rights law. Reknown death penal­ty expert and law pro­fes­sor Tony Amsterdam notes,​“In these essays, some of our most…

As Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney seeks to rein­state cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment with a​“fool­proof” sys­tem(see ear­li­er What’s New item), a news inves­ti­ga­tion has revealed that 22 state men have served lengthy prison terms over the last two decades for rapes and mur­ders that they did not com­mit. Most of the wrong­ly con­vict­ed inmates were black. Experts say that Boston’s Suffolk County pros­e­cu­tors have wrong­ly con­vict­ed the sec­ond high­est num­ber of inno­cent people in…

After a review of North Carolina’s death penal­ty, the North Carolina Academy of Trial Lawyers has issued a series of 11 rec­om­men­da­tions that aim to address issues of fair­ness and accu­ra­cy in the state’s cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment statutes. In addi­tion to rec­om­men­da­tions address­ing hid­den evi­dence, mis­tak­en eye­wit­ness iden­ti­fi­ca­tions, dis­crim­i­na­tion, and unre­li­able con­fes­sions, the group urged North Carolina law­mak­ers to enact a moratorium on…