Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

After years of supporting capital punishment, former San Francisco prosecutor Bill Fazio recently changed his position on the death penalty. Fazio, who now serves as a defense attorney, stated, “Life without parole is a viable alternative.” He noted that he began to reconsider his stance on capital punishment after the U.S. Court of Appeals reversed his sole death penalty conviction. Fazio noted, “It was an error by the trial judge, and it made me realize that after 21 years there was still no…

Governor Rod Blagojevich has signed a measure requiring police to record their interrogations of homicide suspects. The governor’s signature makes Illinois the first state to officially implement such a policy. Blagojevich, a former prosecutor, noted that his previously-voiced concerns that video taped interrogations would impede police from doing their job had been overridden by the knowledge that the tapes will yield “clearer, more reliable” evidence for the state’s justice system. The law…

After spending a quarter century in prison, including time on Ohio’s death row, Timothy Howard and Gary Lemar James have been freed from prison and all charges against the men will be dropped. The men, who have maintained their innocence since their arrest in 1976, were freed, according to Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O’Brien, “in the interest of justice.” O’Brien stated, “The lesson to be learned is what I said in the letter I sent a year and a half ago. We don’t want anybody in prison…

In a recent Letter to the Editor that appeared in The New York Times, former Governor Mario Cuomo urged New Yorkers to rethink the death penalty in light of recent innocence cases in the state: “Trapped in the System,” by Bob Herbert (column, July 14), tells the harrowing story of the innocent Louisiana death row inmate Ryan Matthews and is a chilling reminder of the fallibility of America’s criminal justice system, but New Yorkers should not delude themselves that innocent people sit on death…

In a ruling that could affect nearly every death row inmate in the state, the North Carolina Supreme Court has upheld the practice of using indictments without aggravating factors in murder cases. The ruling came in the case of death row inmate Henry Lee Hunt. Hunt’s attorneys had argued that, in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Ring v. Arizona, failure to include aggravating factors in first-degree murder indictments is a violation of the due process clause of the 14^th Amendment.

“The Execution of Wanda Jean,” an HBO documentary directed by Liz Garbus of Moxie Firecracker Films, and a series of news articles by the staff of the York Daily Record, including extensive coverage of the release of Pennsylvania native Ray Krone from Arizona’s death row, will receive honors during the Death Penalty Information Center’s (DPIC) Seventh Annual Thurgood Marshall Journalism Awards at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. The program will also feature keynote remarks from…

Brian Deegan, a magistrate in South Australia who lost his son in the October 2002 Sari nightclub bombing in Bali, recently stated that he believes the terrorists who commited that crime should not receive the death penalty, but should be sentenced to a term of life in prison without parole. In an opinion piece in The Australian, Deegan noted: The Bali bombers who murdered my son last October are evil extremists, but they don’t deserve the death penalty. … Indeed, I have no problem with the…

As the Texas legislative session came to a close, criminal justice reform advocates gave lawmakers a failing grade for their work in addressing problems in the state’s legal system. Senator Rodney Ellis of Houston joined an array of legal experts to criticize the state legislators’ inability to pass measures to end the execution of juvenile offenders, to strengthen the consular notification process for foreign nationals, and to require the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to hold a hearing…

Charles B. Blackmar, senior judge of Missouri’s Supreme Court from 1982 – 1992, recently called for consideration of abolishing the death penalty. In a letter to the editor that appeared in the Kansas City Star, Blackmar stated: Most nations that share our political and cultural traditions have done away with the death penalty. The nations that still have capital punishment include China, North Korea, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria and, before the American invasion, Iraq. I am not aware of any nation…

The Legislative Coordinating Council of Kansas, a group of legislative leaders who represent the Kansas legislature when it’s not in session, recently authorized committees to study three aspects of the state’s capital punishment law this summer. Among the topics under review are the cost of imposing the death penalty, the state’s funding of the Board of Indigents’ Defense Services and its Death Penalty Unit, and the effectiveness of laws to ensure that mentally ill defendants are not executed.