Articles

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…

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…

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…

Michael Traynor, President Emeritus of the pres­ti­gious American Law Institute (ALI), called the ALI’s recent with­draw­al of its mod­el death penal­ty law​“a strik­ing repu­di­a­tion from the very orga­ni­za­tion that pro­vid­ed the blue­print for death penal­ty laws in this coun­try.” He not­ed that the ALI had care­ful­ly reviewed the death penal­ty process, and that​“Now, after search­ing analy­sis by our coun­try’s top legal minds,…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

A recent edi­to­r­i­al in the Virginian-Pilot called for elim­i­nat­ing the death penal­ty as a good way to address the $3.5 bil­lion gap in the state’s bud­get.​“Doing away with the option of a death sen­tence makes sense on sev­er­al lev­els,” the edi­tors wrote.​“It would save the state from hav­ing to pay fees asso­ci­at­ed with lengthy tri­als and years of appeals. It would end the agony of repeat­ed court hear­ings for the fam­i­lies of vic­tims. It would elim­i­nate the four…