Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

Anthony Maurice Bone will become the sixth North Carolina death row inmate to have his sentence commuted to life in prison due to a 2001 state law banning the execution of individuals with mental retardation. The state defines as mentally retarded anyone with an IQ of 70 or below who also has significant impairment in at least two of ten life activities, such as communicating and taking care of themselves. The law requires that defendants show signs of retardation before they turn 18. The U.S.

During a recent appearance on CNN’s “Larry King Live,” comedian Bill Cosby addressed capital punishment and his experience as the father of a murdered child. Cosby noted: “And when they said, ‘Do you want, you know, the death penalty?’ My wife was the first one. She said no. No, it’s not for us to deal with the obvious. And my thought was, ‘Hey man. They could poison, they could strap 1,000 of these people in the chair.” Larry King: “Isn’t going to bring him back.” (CNN.com Transcripts…

Four stays were granted for executions that were scheduled to take place this week in Texas and Georgia, and Oklahoma’s Pardon and Parole Board unanimously recommended clemency for a foreign national facing execution in January 2004. In Texas, courts ordered three stays of execution. Two of the cases involved challenges to the use of pancuronium bromide as part of the state’s lethal injection process. A third case, that of Bobby Lee Hines, was stayed on the basis of a mental retardation claim.

A series of public opinion polls reveals that only about a third of Americans support the death penalty as applied to those who are under the age of 18 at the time of their crime. Recent survey results include the following: A fall 2001 National Opinion Research Center poll found that while 62% of respondents favored the death penalty in general, only 34% supported the execution of juvenile offenders. In a series of follow-up questions that further probed respondents about their positions, it…

Twenty-six years ago, Bill Wiseman drafted the first lethal-injection law in U.S. history, forever changing the way most death penalty states administer executions. He now says that guilt compelled him to draft the legislation after voting to reinstate the death penalty in Oklahoma despite the fact that he had always been an opponent of capital punishment. At the time, Wiseman was a first-term lawmaker in Oklahoma’s assembly, and he knew opposing the state’s 1976 measure to bring back capital…

Minnesota Senator Tom Neuville, the leading Republican committee member on the state’s Senate Judiciary Committee, says he will oppose Governor Tim Pawlenty’s efforts to reinstate death penalty. Neuville’s basic opposition is moral: “If we solve violence by becoming violent ourselves, we become diminished.” Neuville, a former death penalty supporter whose reexamination of his pro-life beliefs led him to change his mind on the issue, feels that many of his colleagues share his concerns. “Life is…

On December 9, 2003, Nicholas James Yarris of Pennsylvania became the 10^th person to be exonerated from death row in 2003, equalling the most exonerations in a single year since the death penalty was reinstated. He is the nation’s 112^th death row exoneree. Yarris’s conviction was initially overturned when three DNA tests of the forensic trial evidence excluded him. His exoneration became final when Delaware County prosecutors announced that they were dropping all charges against him. In July…

The Supreme Court will hear arguments in Banks v. Dretke on Monday, December 8, 2003. The Court will review the lower court’s denial of relief despite evidence that Banks was poorly represented at his 1980 trial, that prosecutors withheld key information, and that testimony from two prosecution witnesses was unreliable. For more information about this case, please see DPIC’s Banks v. Dretke page.

David Protess, a professor at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism in Chicago, has been awarded the Puffin/Nation Prize for Creative Citizenship. Protess and his investigative journalism students exposed miscarriages of justice in a number of high-profile cases in Illinois, including the case of Anthony Porter, who was only 48 hours away from his execution until students found evidence of his innocence. Porter’s case has often been cited by former Illinois Governor George Ryan…

“Legacy of Violence: Lynch Mobs and Executions in Minnesota,” a book by John D. Bessler, examines the history of illegal and state-sanctioned executions in Minnesota, one of twelve states that currently does not have the death penalty. The book is timely in that the current governor, Tim Pawlenty, has proposed reinstating the death penalty, which was abolished in 1911. The book includes detailed personal accounts from those who were involved in the events, as well as a history of Minnesota’s…