Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

“Harmful Error,” a new report released by the The Center for Public Integrity, is the end prod­uct of an exten­sive two-year review of pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct around the nation. The report notes that while many local pros­e­cu­tors per­form their dif­fi­cult work admirably, inad­ver­tent and inten­tion­al mis­con­duct still per­me­ates some dis­trict attor­neys’ offices. Among oth­er pieces of valu­able infor­ma­tion con­tained in the report,​“Harmful Error” doc­u­ments cases in…

By a vote of 7 – 2, the U.S. Supreme Court has thrown out the death sen­tence of Maryland death row inmate Kevin Wiggins, rul­ing that his inex­pe­ri­enced attor­neys failed to ade­quate­ly rep­re­sent him at tri­al. Wiggins’ orig­i­nal lawyers made no attempt to inform mem­bers of the jury that sent Wiggins to death row that their client was repeat­ed­ly raped, beat­en and denied food as a child, and that his moth­er burned his hands on the stove as pun­ish­ment. In an opin­ion authored by…