Articles

A recent edi­to­r­i­al in the Spokane (WA) Spokesman-Review called for elim­i­na­tion of the death penal­ty in light of its high costs and the state’s tight bud­get. Executions are uncer­tain and delayed by the neces­si­ty of appeals to ensure the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the tri­al. The edi­to­r­i­al cit­ed a study by the Washington Bar Association that iden­ti­fied over $600,000 in addi­tion­al costs for a cap­i­tal case: ​“death penal­ty cas­es are esti­mat­ed to gen­er­ate rough­ly $470,000 in addi­tion­al costs to the pros­e­cu­tion and defense over the cost of try­ing the same case as…

The Death Penalty Information Center col­lects rel­e­vant death penal­ty arti­cles that have appeared in print and on media Web sites. Our annu­al com­pi­la­tion is a rep­re­sen­ta­tive sam­ple of the exten­sive media cov­er­age giv­en to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment for a par­tic­u­lar year and is not inclu­sive of all such arti­cles. For those inter­est­ed in exam­in­ing the titles and sources for this cov­er­age, we have pre­pared an index of the arti­cles from 2009 in Excel for­mat. The index is arranged chrono­log­i­cal­ly and may be sort­ed or searched after down­load­ing. Each article’s entry gives…

Mike Hendricks, colum­nist for the Kansas City Star, recent­ly described how the state goes through the motions of hav­ing a death penal­ty, but with no imme­di­ate prospect of its use after 16 years. Kansas rein­stat­ed the death penal­ty in 1994; eight years ago, the Lansing Correctional Facility held an open house for the media, show­cas­ing its new death cham­ber. The room was then sealed and has remained untouched. Ten pris­on­ers await exe­cu­tion, one of whom has been on death row for thir­teen years. ​“No one that I’m aware of is…

A recent edi­to­r­i­al in Pennsylvania’s Patriot-News rec­om­mend­ed doing away with the death penal­ty as a way to address the state bud­get cri­sis. ​“Problems are entrenched in the sys­tem and giv­en its high cost, Pennsylvania should def­i­nite­ly put the idea of doing away with the death penal­ty on the table,” the paper wrote. Among the rea­sons cit­ed was the fact that the death penal­ty in Pennsylvania is essen­tial­ly a very expen­sive form of life with­out parole: ​“In Pennsylvania, with the excep­tion of the three pris­on­ers who were exe­cut­ed, death row already…

A recent edi­to­r­i­al in the Dallas Morning News recalled that the paper had reversed its posi­tion in sup­port of the death penal­ty in April 2007. Since then, the edi­to­r­i­al not­ed, Texas has account­ed for an even larg­er per­cent­age of the coun­try’s exe­cu­tions, but also that there are signs the use of the death penal­ty is declin­ing even in Texas. The paper high­light­ed the 55 exon­er­a­tions from death row in this decade as a 25% increase from last decade, and the sharp decline in the num­ber of death sen­tences com­pared to…

A recent edi­to­r­i­al in the Charlotte Observer in North Carolina cit­ed the American Law Institute​’s deci­sion in 2009 to sep­a­rate itself from the death penal­ty sys­tem as anoth­er rea­son for the state to abol­ish the prac­tice. The ALI, whose mod­el death penat­ly stan­dards were instru­men­tal in the U.S. Supreme Court​’s deci­sion to allow the rein­state­ment of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in 1976, has recent­ly dis­avowed its own rec­om­men­da­tions because the many prob­lems of the sys­tem had ren­dered it unwork­able. The edi­to­r­i­al also cit­ed a recent­ly pub­lished study by Duke University Professor Philip…

An edi­to­r­i­al in the Salt Lake Tribune recent­ly called for an end to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, stat­ing that ​“the legal, moral and prac­ti­cal argu­ments against cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment have evolved from sound to unas­sail­able” since the pun­ish­ment was rein­stat­ed over 30 years ago. The edi­to­r­i­al points to the fal­li­bil­i­ty of the sys­tem as a major con­cern, cit­ing the Death Penalty Information Center​’s report that nine inmates have been exon­er­at­ed and released from death row in 2009 alone. The arbi­trary nature of the death penal­ty sys­tem that places racial minori­ties and the poor…

In the course of its research, DPIC col­lects rel­e­vant death penal­ty arti­cles that have appeared in print and on media Web sites. Our col­lec­tion cer­tain­ly does not con­tain all such arti­cles, nor do we claim that it rep­re­sents the ​“best” arti­cles. It is only a rep­re­sen­ta­tive sam­ple of the exten­sive cov­er­age giv­en to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in print in a par­tic­u­lar year. For those inter­est­ed in exam­in­ing this cov­er­age, we have pre­pared index­es of the arti­cles in PDF for­mat for 2004 to 2007, and an Excel spread­sheet for 2008. Note that…

A recent New York Times edi­to­r­i­al com­ment­ed on the new one-drug lethal injec­tion pro­to­col used in Ohio for the first time on December 8, but con­clud­ed that ​“the exe­cu­tion only rein­forced that any form of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment is legal­ly sus­pect and moral­ly wrong.” The Times agreed with the late Justice Harry Blackmun who called such manip­u­la­tions ​“tinker[ing] with the machin­ery of death.” The edi­to­r­i­al also not­ed the risks of exeuct­ing the inno­cent: ​“It has also become clear — par­tic­u­lar­ly since DNA evi­dence has become more com­mon — how unre­li­able the…