Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

A month after New Jersey’s leg­is­la­ture passed by a wide mar­gin a bipar­ti­san bill call­ing for the cre­ation of a study com­mis­sion to exam­ine the cost, fair­ness and effects of cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tions in the state, Governor James McGreevey has vetoed the mea­sure. The bill passed the leg­is­la­ture in December 2003 with the sup­port of key state law­mak­ers, includ­ing death penal­ty pro­po­nents. In recent years, pub­lic sup­port for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in gen­er­al has sharply…

Attorneys from the New York Capital Defender Office have fol­lowed the lead of var­i­ous death penal­ty experts and peti­tioned the New York Court of Appeals to require a high­er stan­dard of proof of guilt before a death sen­tence may be sought. The cur­rent stan­dard of​“beyond a rea­son­able doubt” of guilt applies in both cap­i­tal and non-cap­i­­­tal cas­es. Because of the evi­dence of mis­takes in death penal­ty cas­es, the attor­neys called for proof​“beyond any doubt” in such cases.

Kamala Harris, the new­­­ly-elec­t­ed San Francisco District Attorney, recent­ly spoke about her approach to keep­ing the community…

A recent Harris Poll found that only 41% of Americans believe that the death penal­ty deters crime, mark­ing the small­est num­ber of such respon­dents in 27 years of this poll. Only 37% of those polled would con­tin­ue to sup­port cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment if they believed​“that quite a sub­stan­tial num­ber of inno­cent peo­ple are con­vict­ed of mur­der.” Overall, 69% per­cent of those polled said that they sup­port cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. The poll was con­duct­ed in December 2003. (PR…

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…

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…

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

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…

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,…