What's New
DPIC RELEASES 2006 YEAR END REPORT NOTING DECLINE IN USE OF THE DEATH PENALTY
Posted: December 14, 2006DPIC's 12th annual Year End Report was released on December 14 and reveals a broad decline in the use of the death penalty in the U.S. based on a number of factors: the public now favors life without parole over the death penalty; the number of executions has dropped to the fewest in a decade, in part because of challenges to the lethal injection process; and the annual number of death sentences is now at a 30-year low. The report notes that various states have put a hold on all executions, while others are reviewing problems in the capital punishment system. The report cites a number of new developments, including the challenges posed by the severe mental illness of many on death row, and quotes a series of law enforcement personnel, editorials, and public officials voicing serious concerns about the death penalty.
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Concerns about the Use of the Federal Death Penalty in Puerto Rico Continue
Posted: December 13, 2006Although no jury has returned a death sentence in a federal case in Puerto Rico in modern times, more cases are pending, raising concerns among many citizens. Puerto Rico bars the death penalty in its constitution. However, a U.S. Court of Appeals decision in 2001 held that the federal death penalty can be applied there. This decision overturned a lower court that ruled the use of the federal death penalty in the Commonwealth would be unconstitutional. The issue has not been reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court. "It’s still an open issue for the U.S. Supreme Court to decide," said death penalty counsel William Matthewman. Opponents of the death penalty point to the fact that American Indian tribes get to choose whether the federal death penalty applies on their land.
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NEW VOICES: Oregon Paper Calls Death Penalty a "Pointless Law"
Posted: December 12, 2006The Albany Democrat-Herald in Oregon recently editorialized that the "death penalty isn't working," and concluded "that the death penalty here is a pointless law. If we’re not going to apply this law, then getting rid of it would be the less expensive course." The editorial cited the possibility of error, the arbitrariness of applying the punishment to some dangerous offenders but not others, and the difficulty of ever getting to an execution as reasons for ending capital punishment. The editorial follows:
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NEW RESOURCES: Final Report on the Death Penalty to the Washington State Bar Association
Posted: December 11, 2006The Death Penalty Subcommittee of the Committee on Public Defense of the Washington State Bar has prepared a report on the state's death penalty that will be submitted to the Bar Association's Board of Governors in early 2007. The Subcommittee was formed to examine the costs of the state's death penalty and to recommend whether the death penalty should be continued, given the expenses and the state's experience in carrying out death sentences. The Death Penalty Subcommittee was made up of supporters and opponents of the death penalty, all with extensive experience with the criminal justic
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NEW RESOURCES: Bureau of Justice Statistics Releases Capital Punishment, 2005
Posted: December 8, 2006The Bureau of Justice Statistics has just released the 2005 version of its annual report on the death penalty in the U.S. The report notes that both the number of death sentences and the size of death row were down for 2005, and that this represents a trend over the past 5 years. The report states that there were 60 executions in 2005, all by lethal injection, and that the time between sentencing and execution was longer in 2005 than in 2004.
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Senators Leahy and Specter Introduce Habeas Corpus Restoration Act
Posted: December 7, 2006- Read more
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ARBITRARINESS: Federal Judge Deeply Troubled about Inconsistencies in Lethal Injection Rulings
Posted: December 7, 2006Recently in Ohio and other states, some inmates challenging the lethal injection process in federal courts have been given stays of executions, while others, similarly situated, have been denied stays and have been executed. This inconsistent application of federal law in capital cases has raised concerns among a number of federal judges. A stay was recently granted to Ohio inmate Jerome Henderson, but denied to Jeffrey Lundgren. On December 6, U.S.
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NEW RESOURCES: Victims' Group to Release Report on Families of the Executed
Posted: December 5, 2006
Murder Victims’ Families for Human Rights will release a new report on December 10 entitled “Creating More Victims: How Executions Hurt the Families Left Behind.” Families of the executed are victims, too, according to the new report, which draws upon the stories of three dozen family members of inmates executed in the United States and demonstrates that their experiences and traumatic symptoms resemble those of many others who have suffered a violent loss.
“I don’t think people understand what executions do to the families of the person being executed,” says Billie Jean Mayberry, one of the family members featured in the report. Mayberry’s brother, Robert Coe, was executed in Tennessee in 2000. “To us, our brother was murdered right in front of our eyes. It changed all of our lives.”
“Creating More Victims” includes recommendations for mental health professionals, educators, and child welfare advocates. MVFHR also plans to deliver the report to the United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights and request that that office undertake further study of the impact of executions on surviving families.
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Stays Granted in Two Pending Executions: Issues are Lethal Injection and Mental Illness
Posted: December 5, 2006Stays have been granted in two of the three executions that had still been scheduled for December. On December 1 in Ohio, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit granted a stay of execution to Jerome Henderson, whose execution had been scheduled for December 5. Henderson was allowed to join a challenge to the state's lethal injection protocol. The 6th Circuit denied the state's request to rehear the issue, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to lift the stay. (Associated Press, Dec. 5, 2006).
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State Bar of Texas Adopts Texas-Specific Version of ABA Guidelines for Death Penalty Cases
Posted: December 1, 2006- Read more
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Latest News
With the Washington Supreme Court's declaration on October 11 that the state's death penalty violates its state constitution, twenty states have now abolished capital punishment.
Here is the current map of states with and without the death penalty in the United States. See States With and Without the Death Penalty.
NEWS (10/19): The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has issued a stay of execution to Kwame Rockwell, who was scheduled to be executed October 24. The court ruled that Rockwell had raised "substantial doubt" as to his competency to be executed and directed the trial court to "appoint at least two mental health experts" to evaluate his competency.
NEWS (10/11): The Washington Supreme Court has declared the state's death penalty unconstitutional. In a unanimous decision, the court said, "The death penalty is invalid because it is imposed in an arbitrary and racially biased manner." It converted all death sentences to life imprisonment.
NEWS (10/11): Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam issued a temporary reprieve of the state's scheduled October 11 execution of Edmund Zagorski, halting it until at least October 21. At the time of the Governor's action, a Tennessee federal district court and a federal appeals court had each issued orders temporarily halting the execution and a stay motion and petition for review were pending in the U.S. Supreme Court. The Supreme Court subsequently vacated the appeals court stay and denied Zagorski's request that it review his case. The district court order will become moot if Tennessee choses to execute Zagorski with the electric chair.
NEWS (10/8): Former North Carolina death-row prisoner James Woodson, whose case resulted in a 1976 U.S. Supreme Court decision that declared mandatory death sentences unconstitutional, has died. Woodson was the driver in a robbery gone bad that resulted in the murder of a store clerk. He never left the car, but received a mandatory death sentence, while the actual shooter eascaped the death penalty by reaching a plea deal on lesser charges.
NEWS (10/5): The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has granted a stay of execution to Juan Segundo in light of Moore v. Texas to permit him to re-litigate his claim that he ineligible to be executed because he is intellectually disabled. He was scheduled to be executed on October 10. The Texas courts had previously denied his claim, applying the "Briseno factors" that were declared unconstitutional in Moore. See Executions and Stays — 2018.
NEWS (10/5): Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam denied clemency to Edmund Zagorski, scheduled to be executed on October 11.
NEWS (10/4): The Florida Supreme Court lifted the stay of execution it had issued in August for Jose Jimenez. Justices Pariente and Quince would have allowed the stay to remain in place and granted an evidentiary hearing on the constitutionality of Florida's use of the drug etomidate in its execution protocol, in light of evidence that Eric Branch may have experienced significant pain when Florida executed him using that drug on February 22, 2018.
Texas executed Troy Clark (left) on September 26 and Daniel Acker (right) on September 27. In his final statement, Clark said: "I'm not the one that killed Christina, so whatever makes y'all happy. I love ya'll. I'll see you on the other side." The executions were the 17th and 18th in the U.S. in 2018, ten of which have been carried out by Texas. See Execution List 2018.
NEWS (9/28): A trial court in Nevada has granted a preliminary injunction to pharmaceutical company Alvogen barring the Nevada Department of Corrections from carrying out executions using a supply of midazolam produced by the company. Read the injunction here.
NEWS (9/28): The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals has dismissed a petition filed by death-row prisoner Julius Jones seeking to obtain a hearing on new evidence that his conviction and death sentence were the unconstitutional product of racial bias. Jones sought review of evidence that one of the jurors had called the trial a waste of time and said "They should just take the n***** out and shoot him behind the jail."
NEWS (9/28): The Nebraska Supreme Court has denied death-row prisoner John Lotter's claim that the state's three-judge capital sentencing scheme violates the Sixth Amendment right to a jury determination of all facts necessary to impose the death penalty. The court declined to address the merits of the challenge, instead ruling that Lotter's appeal was untimely filed.
NEWS (9/24): We are thrilled to announce that Ngozi Ndulue has joined the Death Penalty Information Center's staff as DPIC's new Director of Research and Special Projects. Ms. Ndulue is an experienced capital litigator, who most recently served as Senior Director of Criminal Justice Programs at the national NAACP.
NEWS (9/21): The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has upheld a ruling of a visiting judge in Clearfield County granting of a new sentencing hearing to death-row prisoner Daniel Crispell as a result of his trial lawyer's ineffectiveness for failing to investigate and present mitigating evidence. The Court also remanded Crispell's case for further proceedings on his claim that the prosecution unconstitutionally failed to disclose part of a police report indicating that investigators did not believe the co-defendant's assertion that the 18-year-old Crispell—rather than the co-defendant—had stabbed the victim to death.
NEWS (9/21): The Louisiana Supreme Court has denied post-conviction relief for Henri Broadway, convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of football star Warrick Dunn’s mother. Broadway's co-defendant, Kevan Brumfield, also was sentenced to death, but has been released from death row as a result of intellectual disability.
NEWS (9/21): A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has unanimously granted a new trial to Ohio death-row prisoner Ahmad Issa. The court ruled that the prosecution had presented untrustworthy hearsay testimony against Issa, denying him the opportunity to confront the person who allegedly had implicated him in the murder. Judge Gilbert S. Merritt filed a concurring opinion saying he also would have granted a new trial as a result of trial counsel's failure to present the victim's wife as a witness. The prosecution had also charged her with the murder, and she had testified in a prior trial—in which she was acquitted—that she and Issa had not conspired to kill her husband.
NEWS (9/20): The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit has affirmed a Missouri federal district court ruling reversing the death sentence imposed on David Barnett. The court found that Barnett had been provided ineffective representation in the penalty-phase of his capital trial and again in state post-conviction proceedings and that he was entitled to a new sentencing hearing.
NEWS (9/20): The Florida Supreme Court decided three more death-penalty cases, overturning one death sentence but upholding two others.
The court ruled that the death sentence imposed by a trial judge on Rafael Andres Grant following a 9-3 jury recommendation for death violated its ruling in Hurst v. State that non-unanimous death verdicts violate the Sixth Amendment and the Florida state constitution. The court upheld Grant's conviction.
The court upheld the death sentences imposed by the trial judge on Edward Zakrzewski despite jury votes of 7-5 on two murder counts and a judicial override of the jury's 6-6 recommendation for life on the third count. It declined to apply its constitutional ruling in Hurst to Zakrewski's case because his direct appeal had become final prior to the June 2002 cutoff date adopted by the court for enforcing the Hurst decision.
The court also denied a Hurst-related challenge brought by Richard Lynch, holding that he had validly waived his right to a jury sentencing hearing.
NEWS (9/20): The Ohio Supreme Court has upheld the death sentence imposed on James Goff after he had been denied a jury trial in his death-penalty resentencing hearing in 2015. Goff's death sentence had been overturned by a federal appeals court in 2010 and his case had been returned to the state courts for resentencing. Goff had argued in his latest appeal that the U.S. Supreme Court's 2016 decision in Hurst v. Florida, which recognized a Sixth Amendment right to a jury determination of all facts necessary to impose a death sentence, entitled him to have a jury empaneled for his resentencing hearing.
NEWS (9/20): The Arkansas Judicial Discipline and Disability Commission has filed formal charges against six Justices of the Arkansas Supreme Court, finding probable cause that the justices had violated the canons of judicial ethics when they removed Judge Wendell Griffen from all death-penalty cases because of Griffen's participation in a vigil against capital punishment.
NEWS (9/20): Disgraced former Chicago police Commander Jon Burge has died. Burge was implicated in the torture of more than 100 mostly black or Latino suspects, eliciting false confessions to murder from at least ten men who were sentenced to death and later exonerated. Exposure of Burge's misconduct was a significant factor in Illinois Governor George Ryan's decisions to declare a moratorium on executions and to commute the sentences of every prisoner on the state's death row, and in the legislature's abolition of the death penalty in 2011. Chicago taxpayers have absorbed the cost of more than $100 million in lawsuit settlements related to Burge's actions.
The U.S. Supreme Court's Fall 2018 term has begun. You can read summaries of the capital cases the Court is considering on our United States Supreme Court Decisions: 2018-2019 Term webpage.
NEW DISCUSSIONS WITH DPIC PODCAST — Professor Keelah Williams Explains Research Linking “Resource Scarcity” to Support for the Death Penalty. 
Keelah Williams, assistant professor of psychology at Hamilton College in New York, speaks with DPIC executive director Robert Dunham about the implications of her research on the death penalty and resource scarcity — a concept from evolutionary psychology that studies how people react to social conditions in an environment with limited resources. See Discussions With DPIC Podcasts. Listen to the podcast here.
DPIC 2017 Year End Report
Death Sentences, Executions Second Lowest in a Quarter Century
Resources
- Full text of the report.
- DPIC's Press Release.
- INFOGRAPHIC: "The Death Penalty in the U.S.".
- AUDIO: Clips.
- GRAPHICS: Individual Downloads as PNG or SVG files.
- 2017 Death Sentences by Name, Race, and County
From DPIC
"DPIC Podcasts
DPIC Podcast Series: We have begun a new set of podcasts on the death penalty in each state, each with interesting historical facts. The following are now available: Michigan, Wisconsin, Maine, Minnesota, North Dakota, Alaska, Hawaii, Iowa, Vermont, Massachusetts, District of Columbia, Rhode Island, and New Jersey. Check out our podcasts now! Also listen to DPIC's podcasts on death penalty issues.
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