Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

Pennsylvania death row inmate Nicholas James Yarris may become the next per­son to be freed from death row. In light of new DNA evi­dence that excludes Yarris as the per­son respon­si­ble for the 1981 rape and mur­der for which he was con­vict­ed, U.S. District Court Judge James Giles said that Yarris must be freed or grant­ed a new tri­al in Delaware County with­in two weeks. Giles gave the Delaware County dis­trict attor­ney’s office and defense attor­neys 10 days to con­firm that the new…

The most recent newslet­ter pro­duced by the End to Capital Punishment Movement USA (ECPM USA) high­lights devel­op­ments in the orga­ni­za­tion’s aim to strength­en the cross-Atlantic dia­logue on the death penal­ty. Among oth­er items, the newslet­ter con­tains arti­cles on state reports on the death penal­ty, the Council of Europe sem­i­nars on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment that were recent­ly held in Illinois and Washington, DC, and infor­ma­tion about the Second World Conference on the Death…

The fol­low­ing excerpts are from Judge Mark Wolf’s opin­ion allow­ing the fed­er­al cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tion of Gary Lee Sampson to pro­ceed. In his deci­sion, Judge Wolf of the Federal District Court in Boston expressed reser­va­tions about the risks of exe­cut­ing the inno­cent and appeared to crit­i­cize the Justice Department’s zeal­ous approach to seek­ing cap­i­tal con­vic­tions. The head­ings for these excerpts, which are not part of the orig­i­nal text, are fol­lowed by page numbers…

A new report by Michael Mears of the Office of the Multi-County Public Defender pro­vides a detailed exam­i­na­tion of every death penal­ty tri­al in Georgia since the state passed its cur­rent death penal­ty statute in 1973. This resource con­tains a list­ing of death penal­ty cas­es by name of the defen­dant, name of the coun­ty, name of the judi­cial cir­cuit, as well as the dis­po­si­tion of every death penal­ty case. It also pro­vides a brief overview of the his­toric role Georgia has…

In a recent Greensboro News & Record op-ed, Marshall Hurley, a long-time Republican in North Carolina, ques­tioned giv­ing the state author­i­ty to car­ry out exe­cu­tions when the cur­rent prac­tice of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment fails to meet con­ser­v­a­tive stan­dards and risks innocent…

The New York Times Magazine recent­ly explored the life of Stanley Williams, an orig­i­nal founder of the​“Crips” gang and a con­vict­ed mur­der­er who has been on death row in San Quentin prison for more…

A recent paper based on the Notre Dame Study of Catholic Parish Life reveals that sup­port for the death penal­ty among Catholics is strong­ly shaped by the opin­ion of their parish priest. After exam­in­ing Catholic opin­ions regard­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, soci­ol­o­gists Michael Welch of Notre Dame and Thoroddur Bjarnason of the University of Albany-SUNY dis­cov­ered that Catholics are less like­ly to sup­port the death penal­ty when their parish priest strong­ly oppos­es it. The study…

In a deci­sion reluc­tant­ly allow­ing a fed­er­al cap­i­tal mur­der case against Gary Lee Sampson to pro­ceed, Judge Mark L. Wolf of the Federal District Court in Boston expressed reser­va­tions about the accu­ra­cy of the death penal­ty and appeared to crit­i­cize the Justice Department’s zeal­ous approach to seek­ing the capital…

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4^th Circuit has reject­ed an appeal filed on behalf of North Carolina death row inmate Kenneth Rouse. Without dis­put­ing the mer­its of his claim, the court ruled that it would not hear the case because the motion was filed one day after an appeal dead­line estab­lished by a 1996 fed­er­al law. In its rul­ing, the court wrote that the fact that Rouse faces the death penal­ty is no rea­son to give lee­way in meet­ing the fed­er­al dead­line. Rouse’s…

A recent Pew Research Center poll revealed a sig­nif­i­cant decline in sup­port for the death penal­ty as 64% of respon­dents sup­port­ed the pun­ish­ment com­pared to 78% in 1996. In addi­tion, the poll found that few­er respon­dents who favored cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment felt strong­ly about their sup­port (28% today com­pared to 43% in 1996), while a grow­ing num­ber of Americans are voic­ing oppo­si­tion to the pun­ish­ment alto­geth­er (30% today compared to…