Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

Psychiatrist Cynthia Smith, who served as a key wit­ness in the 1990 death penal­ty case against John Daniels of North Carolina, has recant­ed her tes­ti­mo­ny because state pros­e­cu­tors with­held impor­tant infor­ma­tion from her. ​“My tes­ti­mo­ny was erro­neous with gross errors. Not only did the pros­e­cu­tion fail to give me all the rel­e­vant infor­ma­tion, I did not look for the infor­ma­tion either,” White said in an affi­davit about the tes­ti­mo­ny she gave in her first and only cap­i­tal case. She added, ​“John…

The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) released its year­ly report on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment on November 4, 2003. The fig­ures report­ed were for the year 2002. (See also DPIC’s Year End Report 2002). The BJS report­ed that death sen­tences in the U.S. have declined for four straight years, drop­ping by almost 50% since 1998. DPIC will release a report with 2003 fig­ures in mid-December 2003. Read Capital Punishment,…

In a Seattle Times op-ed reflect­ing on the plea agree­ment for ser­i­al killer Gary Ridgway result­ing in a life with­out parole sen­tence (read more), Washington State Superior Court Judge David A. Nichols stat­ed that the ​“death penal­ty as a response to any crim­i­nal behav­ior no longer has valid­i­ty and should be repealed, because it is impos­si­ble to admin­is­ter with jus­tice and fair­ness.” He further…

Evidence from a cap­i­tal mur­der case and sev­en oth­er cas­es test­ed for DNA by the Houston Police Department’s crime lab have been destroyed. The District Attorney’s office said that it may have to ask for par­dons in these cas­es if the defen­dants were con­vict­ed large­ly on the weight of DNA evidence. ​“We’re going to have to alert the judges and the defense attor­neys and eval­u­ate each case to see what we have got to sup­port the con­vic­tion with­out the DNA. If DNA played a large role, I may be…

A review of death penal­ty defense poli­cies in Texas has uncov­ered wide­spread non­com­pli­ance with state laws that require each region to adopt qual­i­fi­ca­tion stan­dards for cap­i­tal defense attor­neys. Only two of the nine judi­cial regions in Texas have adopt­ed the stan­dards. A report on the find­ings has been pub­lished by the Equal Justice Center, a Texas orga­ni­za­tion that advo­cates for greater fair­ness in the jus­tice sys­tem, and the Texas Defender Service, an orga­ni­za­tion ded­i­cat­ed to improving…

By a vote of 357 – 67, the U.S. House of Representatives passed leg­is­la­tion des­ig­nat­ing $25 mil­lion in fund­ing over five years for DNA test­ing that could help prove the inno­cence of some death row inmates. The bill also pro­vides fund­ing for states to improve the qual­i­ty of legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion for those fac­ing cap­i­tal charges. The bipar­ti­san-sup­­port­ed bill, enti­tled The Advancing Justice Through DNA Technology Act of 2003 (H.R. 3214), includes a com­pre­hen­sive pack­age of pro­grams that provides…

A Charlotte (North Carolina) News & Observer inves­tiga­tive series about the death penal­ty found that pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct led to a num­ber of North Carolina cap­i­tal con­vic­tions being over­turned, and that more cas­es are cur­rent­ly under review due to ques­tions of improp­er behav­ior by the state. The series not­ed that pros­e­cu­tors who have with­held evi­dence often receive no sig­nif­i­cant pun­ish­ment. Among the cas­es high­light­ed in the report were the…

In a plea agree­ment reached with Washington state pros­e­cu­tors, Gary Ridgway, a Seattle-area man who admit­ted to 48 mur­ders since 1982, will serve a sen­tence of life in prison with­out parole. Prosecutors spared Ridgway from exe­cu­tion in exchange for his coop­er­a­tion in lead­ing police to the remains of still-mis­s­ing vic­tims. (Associated Press, November 5, 2003) The state’s plea agree­ment rais­es ques­tions of pro­por­tion­al­i­ty in sen­tenc­ing when com­pared with the oth­er inmates on the state’s death…

Race plays a sig­nif­i­cant role in who receives the death penal­ty in Washington. Research com­piled by the Washington Death Penalty Assistance Center, revealed that death notices have nev­er been filed in a case with a white defen­dant and a black vic­tim, while such notices have been filed in 42% of mur­der cas­es with a black defen­dant and a white vic­tim. Of the 10 indi­vid­u­als cur­rent­ly on death row in Washington, nine cas­es involved a white vic­tim and none involved a black vic­tim. In addition,…

During a speech host­ed by the Southern Center for International Studies in Atlanta, Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor stressed the impor­tance of inter­na­tion­al law for American courts and the need for the United States to cre­ate a more favor­able impres­sion abroad. She cit­ed recent Supreme Court cas­es, includ­ing the Court’s rul­ing to ban the exe­cu­tion of those with men­tal retar­da­tion, that illus­trate the increased will­ing­ness of U.S. courts to take inter­na­tion­al law into account. ​“I…