Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

In the year since for­mer Illinois Governor George Ryan’s deci­sion to grant clemen­cy to all those await­ing exe­cu­tion in the state, no one has been sen­tenced to death in Cook County, which includes Chicago. This marks the first time since Illinois rein­stat­ed cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in 1977 that the coun­ty has not had a death sen­tence. Cook County has his­tor­i­cal­ly sent the high­est annu­al num­ber of defen­dants to death row. Although Illinois cur­rent­ly has a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions in place,…

More than a year after the American Bar Association over­whelm­ing­ly passed guide­lines to raise the qual­i­ty of defense coun­sel in death penal­ty cas­es, no state has adopt­ed the stan­dards and the ABA con­tin­ues to voice con­cern that tri­als are proceeding under ​“a sys­tem that is des­per­ate­ly bro­ken.” Although the ABA does not take a posi­tion on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment oth­er than their oppo­si­tion to exe­cut­ing juve­niles and those with men­tal retar­da­tion, the orga­ni­za­tion’s 2002 guide­lines delineate the…

The Death Penalty Information Center’s 2003 Year End Report fea­tures a series of sig­nif­i­cant death penal­ty devel­op­ments from the past year,…

Judge John Gleeson, a promi­nent fed­er­al judge in New York, recent­ly crit­i­cized U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft for reg­u­lar­ly over­rul­ing local pros­e­cu­tors by direct­ing them to seek the death penal­ty though they have rec­om­mend­ed against it. In an arti­cle appear­ing in the November 2003 issue of the Virginia Law Review, Gleeson not­ed that the policy ​“under­mines the inves­ti­ga­tion and pros­e­cu­tion of vio­lent crimes.” He stated, ​“For the sake of the death penal­ty in a few more federal cases,…

A decade after Georgia leg­is­la­tors estab­lished the sen­tenc­ing option of life in prison with­out parole, the num­ber of Georgia defen­dants sen­tenced to death has dropped from an annu­al aver­age of 10 to 4 or few­er each year. The decline is the result of jurors opt­ing to sen­tence defen­dants to life with­out parole and plea bar­gains in cap­i­tal cas­es. District Attorney J. Tom Morgan not­ed that life with­out parole is in effect a death sentence: ​“It takes a lit­tle bit longer, but it is more certain…

Jurors in Virginia sen­tenced juve­nile offend­er Lee Boyd Malvo to life in prison with­out parole after find­ing him guilty of mur­der­ing Linda Franklin, who was one of 10 vic­tims killed dur­ing a series of shoot­ings in October 2002. Malvo was 17 at the time of the crime. Attorney General John Ashcroft had cit­ed Virginia’s abil­i­ty to impose ​“the ulti­mate sanc­tion” in send­ing Malvo and his men­tor, John Muhammad, to Virginia for pros­e­cu­tion. Virginia is one of only 21 states that allow the execution…

A recent Baltimore Sun edi­to­r­i­al crit­i­cized state lead­ers for fail­ing to respond to a series of stud­ies show­ing that race plays a dis­turb­ing role in cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in Maryland. The paper not­ed that a study con­duct­ed by University of Maryland Professor Raymond Paternoster agreed with four oth­er reviews that all revealed sim­i­lar find­ings regard­ing race and the death penal­ty in Maryland. The paper…

Harris County District Attorney Joseph S. Owmby, who helped pros­e­cute Andrea Yates for cap­i­tal mur­der, recent­ly told a gath­er­ing of 200 Houston area men­tal health and law enforce­ment pro­fes­sion­als that had Yates received more hos­pi­tal treat­ment for her post­par­tum depres­sion, she prob­a­bly would­n’t have mur­dered her chil­dren. Owmby not­ed that Yates lost her last chance for recov­ery when she was released from a hos­pi­tal in League City while she was still dan­ger­ous­ly delu­sion­al. He said that what…