Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

In an op-ed that appeared in the Los Angeles Times on the day Indiana death row inmate Darnell Williams received a stay of exe­cu­tion to allow test­ing of cru­cial DNA evi­dence that could save his life, the pros­e­cu­tor from the case, Thomas Vanes, expressed sec­ond thoughts about seek­ing the death penal­ty. He…

Legislation to bar doc­tors and nurs­es from par­tic­i­pat­ing in exe­cu­tions was recent­ly signed into law by Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich on July 24, 2003. The bill states, ​“The Department of Corrections shall not request, require, or allow a health care prac­ti­tion­er licensed in Illinois, includ­ing but not lim­it­ed to physi­cians and nurs­es, regard­less of employ­ment, to par­tic­i­pate in an exe­cu­tion.” (SB 0277) The bill is in-step with guide­lines estab­lished under the Hippocratic Oath, which calls…

A recent arti­cle in Time looks at the career of Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle. The arti­cle traces Earle’s evolv­ing opin­ion on the death penal­ty since he was first elect­ed D.A. in Texas in 1976, the year the U.S. Supreme Court rein­stat­ed the death penal­ty. Among oth­er con­cerns, ques­tions of inno­cence have caused Earle to grow increas­ing­ly skep­ti­cal about the death penal­ty. The article…

Baltimore County Judge Dana M. Levitz recent­ly sen­tenced a man con­vict­ed of mur­der to two life terms with­out parole, in part because of its pos­si­ble effects on the vic­tims’ fam­i­lies. Levitz said, ​“The dev­as­tat­ing effect that this unend­ing lit­i­ga­tion has on the inno­cent fam­i­lies of the vic­tims is incal­cu­la­ble. By impos­ing a death sen­tence, I ensure that the vic­tim’s fam­i­lies will be sub­ject­ed to many more years of appeals.” Family mem­bers also not­ed that the deci­sion gave them the peace of…

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a Republican, reit­er­at­ed his oppo­si­tion to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Bloomberg noted, ​“The death penal­ty I’ve always had a prob­lem with, because too many times in the past you’ve seen inno­cent peo­ple incar­cer­at­ed and, trag­i­cal­ly, every once in a while they’ve been exe­cut­ed. And until you can show me that the process nev­er would ever con­vict some­body that lat­er on we find out was inno­cent of a crime, mur­der is mur­der no mat­ter who does it, and I think we as a…

A new report by Amnesty International, ​“The Exclusion of Child Offenders from the Death Penalty Under General International Law,” exam­ines the evi­dence sup­port­ing the con­clu­sion that the use of the death penal­ty against juve­nile offend­ers is pro­hib­it­ed under cus­tom­ary inter­na­tion­al law. The prac­tice is already pro­hib­it­ed by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child. William F. Schulz, Executive Director of Amnesty International USA, notes…

In addi­tion to arti­cles about juve­nile jus­tice and mur­der vic­tims’ fam­i­ly mem­bers, the lat­est edi­tion of The Angolite — a prison news mag­a­zine pub­lished by Angola Prison in Louisiana — fea­tures a sec­tion on film­mak­ing with­in prison walls. Angola Prison has host­ed dozens of film crews over the years, and has been the shoot­ing site for award-win­n­ing films such as ​“Dead Man Walking,” ​“Monster’s Ball,” and ​“The Farm.” (The Angolite, November/​December 2002) See…

Jason McCartney, a sur­vivor of the 2002 ter­ror­ist bomb­ing of a Bali night­club and a for­mer Australian foot­ball play­er, said a life­time sen­tence in an Indonesian jail would be a harsh enough pun­ish­ment for the men who plot­ted the attack. ​“At first, I prob­a­bly thought with my ini­tial anger that (the death penal­ty) is the way to go,” said McCartney. ​“It’s var­ied a bit. Sometimes I won­der if that’s an easy way out for them, the death penalty…It’s a hard one.” McCartney, who sustained serious…

Attorneys in Missouri and Pennsylvania will reveal two sep­a­rate exon­er­a­tions from their death rows. In Pennsylvania, attor­neys for Nicholas James Yarris will announce in a press con­fer­ence today (July 28, 2003) that three sep­a­rate DNA tests exclude Yarris from the rape and mur­der for which he was con­vict­ed. Yarris, 41, has spent 21 years on Pennsylvania’s death row, and has always maintained his…

The Georgia General Assembly has passed leg­is­la­tion (HB 777) to cre­ate a state-wide pub­lic defend­er sys­tem, includ­ing an Office of the Georgia Capital Defender to focus sole­ly on death penal­ty cas­es. The new office will assume respon­si­bil­i­ty for the defense of all death penal­ty tri­al and direct appeal cas­es in Georgia. Additional attor­neys and inves­ti­ga­tors will be added to the pub­lic defend­er sys­tem to assume respon­si­bil­i­ty for the additional…