Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

A recent inves­ti­ga­tion of California’s death penal­ty by the Associated Press found that the geo­graph­ic loca­tion of a crime plays a sig­nif­i­cant role in whether a defen­dant receives the death penal­ty. California has the nation’s largest death row. A dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly high num­ber of inmates are from places such as Kern, Riverside, and Shasta Counties, where pros­e­cu­tors have voiced strong sup­port for the death penal­ty and jurors have been more like­ly to sup­port the sen­tence. On the other hand,…

After con­sult­ing with the fam­i­ly of the mur­der vic­tim, Maryland pros­e­cu­tors decid­ed not to seek the death penal­ty against Kenneth Collins dur­ing a recent resen­tenc­ing hear­ing. Collins’ death sen­tence was over­turned because of an inad­e­quate defense at his orig­inial tri­al. Margaret Breeden, the vic­tim’s wid­ow, not­ed that seek­ing the death penal­ty for Collins would result in years of ago­niz­ing appeals and that her family is ​“tired of reliv­ing the mem­o­ries of his death every time a new hearing is…

Mirroring a nation­wide decline in both exe­cu­tions and death row pop­u­la­tion, Maryland’s death row has fall­en by 50% in recent years and the state has not car­ried out an exe­cu­tion since 1998. An in-depth review of Maryland’s death row by The Washington Post found that the state’s death row has dropped from a pop­u­la­tion of 18 to 9, large­ly due to rever­sals in cas­es and the impact of court rul­ings else­where. Victims’ fam­i­lies, emo­tion­al­ly frayed by the years of appeals, are also telling…

The New Jersey Supreme Court has ruled that pros­e­cu­tors who plan to seek the death penal­ty must sub­mit that request to a grand jury for approval. Prior to the 4 – 2 rul­ing by the Court, pros­e­cu­tors could decide to seek the death penal­ty as late as the mid­dle of the tri­al. The Court’s deci­sion was made in the case of Scott Fortin, and will prob­a­bly affect oth­er cas­es cur­rent­ly being pros­e­cut­ed. The remain­ing 13 inmates on death row may not be affect­ed unless the rul­ing is held to be…

Three stays of exe­cu­tion were issued on February 4^th in cas­es in Florida, Texas, and Pennsylvania. The United States Supreme Court briefly stayed an exe­cu­tion in Florida to exam­ine the appeal from Johnny Robinson. However, the Court vot­ed 5 – 4 to allow the exe­cu­tion to take place. In Pennsylvania, the March 11 exe­cu­tion of Kenneth Miller was stayed by a Philadelphia court. In Texas, a 60-day stay was grant­ed to Scott Panetti who was to be exe­cut­ed February 5. Panetti, who in the decade…

In his book ​“Still Surviving,” Nanon Williams (pic­tured right), who was 17 at the time of the crime that placed him on death row, pro­vides a first hand account of liv­ing under a sen­tence of death in Texas. The book details Williams’s jour­ney from teenage boy to adult­hood while liv­ing in the shad­ow of the nation’s busiest exe­cu­tion cham­ber. His text intro­duces read­ers to the expe­ri­ences of soli­tary con­fine­ment and hav­ing friends exe­cut­ed, as well as to main­tain­ing rela­tion­ships with those on…

Just hours after a judge ordered that a death sen­tence hand­ed down in fed­er­al court in Massachusetts be car­ried out in New Hampshire, the N.H. House Democratic Leader, Peter Burling, said the state should renew its con­sid­er­a­tion of leg­is­la­tion to repeal the death penalty. ​“I think the issue is so pro­found­ly divi­sive and so com­plete­ly found­ed on peo­ple’s core val­ues that there be some response,” said Burling. ​“I think most of us believed we’d nev­er see an exe­cu­tion in New Hampshire. It’s easy…

Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty has pro­posed a con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment to rein­state the death penal­ty after near­ly a cen­tu­ry with­out it. The idea has been met with some firm resis­tance from state law­mak­ers, includ­ing crit­i­cism from Representative Keith Ellison, who noted, ​“The death penal­ty serves no legit­i­mate pur­pose. It’s applied unfair­ly, falling dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly on the poor, peo­ple of col­or and, in too many cas­es, on the inno­cent. It’s also a bud­get buster, sap­ping resources from…

In 2003, California juries sent 16 indi­vid­u­als to death row, the low­est num­ber since 1985 and a dra­mat­ic decline from 1999​’s total of 42 new death sen­tences. Some believe the decline is evi­dence of pros­e­cu­tors being more selec­tive in seek­ing death con­vic­tions, as well as the pub­lic’s skep­ti­cism about the cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem. Robert Pugsley, a pro­fes­sor at Southwestern University School of Law in Los Angeles, noted, ​“I think that (inci­dences of wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed death row inmates) has…

The Illinois Coalition Against the Death Penalty has issued a new report, ​“Questioning a Broken System: Capital Punishment in Illinois in 2003,” an in-depth review of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in Illinois fol­low­ing actions by the for­mer gov­er­nor and the leg­is­la­ture to address sys­temic flaws in the state’s death penal­ty sys­tem. The report notes that pros­e­cu­tors con­tin­ue to aggres­sive­ly seek the death penal­ty, but pub­lic skep­ti­cism is grow­ing over the use of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. For exam­ple, 80%…