Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to con­sid­er whether the exe­cu­tion of those who were under the age of 18 at the time of their crime vio­lates the Constitution’s ban on​“cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment.” The Court will like­ly hear argu­ments in the case of Roper v. Simmons , No. 03 – 633, this com­ing fall. The Justices have not vis­it­ed this issue since 1989 and will like­ly decide whether there is now a nation­al con­sen­sus against the prac­tice of exe­cut­ing juvenile offenders.

On February 5^th, Texas is sched­uled to exe­cute Scott Panetti, a men­­­tal­­­ly-ill man who defend­ed him­self at his tri­al despite the fact that he suf­fers from schiz­o­phre­nia and bipo­lar dis­or­der. Panetti was con­vict­ed of killing his par­ents-in-law in 1992, sev­er­al years after he was first diag­nosed with schiz­o­phre­nia. He was hos­pi­tal­ized for men­tal ill­ness in numer­ous facil­i­ties before the crime. Evidence sug­gests that Panetti was psy­chot­ic at the time of the…

Former Kansas Republican state sen­a­tor Tim Emert recent­ly urged mem­bers of the Kansas Senate Judiciary Committee to enact a mora­to­ri­um on impos­ing the death sen­tence and exe­cut­ing those who have already been sen­tenced to die. Noting that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment was his most trou­bling issue when he was a mem­ber of the Kansas leg­is­la­ture, Emert stat­ed,​“I came to the con­clu­sion the only vote I could live with was a​‘no’ vote on the death penal­ty in Kansas. I could not, in…

As it launched a glob­al cam­paign to end the exe­cu­tion of juve­nile offend­ers, Amnesty International released a new report entitled ​“Stop Child Executions! Ending the death penal­ty for child offend­ers.” The report con­demns the exe­cu­tion of those who com­mit crimes before reach­ing the age of 18, a pun­ish­ment the orga­ni­za­tion calls a​“heinous prac­tice due to a greater aware­ness that chil­dren con­sti­tute a​‘pro­tect­ed’ class.” In the report, Amnesty notes that only…

Georgia has enact­ed leg­is­la­tion to under­take the defense of indi­gent per­sons charged with cap­i­tal felonies for which the death penal­ty is being sought in any court in the state. The Office of the Multi-County Public Defender will become the Georgia Capital Defender Office in January 2005. The office is now seek­ing to fill key staff posi­tions.​“See Job Description” (Jan. 15, 2004); see also DPIC​’s report​“With Justice for Few: The Growing Crisis in Death Penalty…

The Chinese gov­ern­ment is plan­ning to imple­ment judi­cial reforms that could sharply reduce its use of the death penal­ty. China will restrict the use of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment by requir­ing its high­est court, the Supreme People’s Court, to review all death penal­ty cas­es before exe­cu­tions are car­ried out. Currently, the high court reviews only a minor­i­ty of such cas­es, allow­ing the provin­cial courts that hand down death sen­tences to review their own judg­ments.​“Criticism of…

After spend­ing more than half of his life on Pennsylvania’s death row for a crime he did not com­mit, Nicholas Yarris was released from prison on Friday, January 16. Yarris had been sen­tenced to death row in 1983 for the mur­der of Linda Craig and was cleared of all charges in December 2003 (see DPIC​’s press release) after DNA evi­dence exclud­ed him from the crime. He remained jailed for weeks after he was exon­er­at­ed while author­i­ties recal­cu­lat­ed sen­tences he received in Florida…

The Pacific island of Samoa has begun for­mal mea­sures to abol­ish the death penal­ty. Samoa has not con­duct­ed an exe­cu­tion in more than 50 years, and death sen­tences that are still deliv­ered by judges are always com­mut­ed to life impris­on­ment. As he intro­duced the statute to abol­ish the death penal­ty, Prime Minister Sailele Malielegaoi told par­lia­ment that the death penal­ty should not be on the law books if it is not going to be car­ried out. (ONE News and AAP, January 16,…

DPIC has pre­pared a new chart show­ing the num­ber of death sen­tences in each state by year since 1977. As we have indi­cat­ed else­where, the over­all num­ber of death sen­tences in the U.S. has declined marked­ly in recent years. For exam­ple, the 159 death sen­tences in 2002 were only HALF of the 320 sen­tences in 1996. Regionally, sen­tences in the West have dropped the most, from 66 in 1996 to 21 in 2002. DPIC​’s chart is based on Bureau of Justice Statistics’ reports. For more…

The Associated Press pro­vid­ed a descrip­tion of the strug­gle to exe­cute Ohio death row inmate Lewis Williams on January 14,…