Articles

A judge in Texas has rec­om­mend­ed that the claim of an unfair tri­al brought by death row inmate Charles Hood should go for­ward because the tri­al judge and pros­e­cu­tor had a secret roman­tic rela­tion­ship that they hid from the defen­dant before, dur­ing, and after his tri­al. CBS News Legal Analyst Andrew Cohen report­ed on the sto­ry, writ­ing, ​“Hood’s judge and pros­e­cu­tor lied, over and over again, to hide their affair. Any blame for the delay in bring­ing jus­tice to Hood is their fault, not his, and Texas would be better…

An edi­to­r­i­al The Daily Astorian, con­trasts the state’s use of funds for the death penal­ty to the state’s reduc­tion in fund­ing for edu­ca­tion. ​“The glar­ing con­trast to our unques­tion­ing spend­ing on the death penal­ty — which Judge Lipscomb called ​‘this large­ly futile attempt’ — is our dis­in­vest­ment in edu­ca­tion,” the paper not­ed. ​“Investment in edu­ca­tion is about the future, and it is about hope. Investment in pris­ons and espe­cial­ly in the death penal­ty is about a final reck­on­ing, an admis­sion of gross fail­ure. Prior to 1990 there was in Oregon…

The Angolite, an award-win­ning mag­a­zine pro­duced by the inmates at Angola Prison in Louisiana, recent­ly pub­lished an exten­sive review of the devel­op­ments in the death penal­ty in 2008. The arti­cle by Lane Nelson addressed nation­wide trends, Supreme Court deci­sions, the issues of cost, the risks of exe­cut­ing inno­cent peo­ple, and the prob­lem of inad­e­quate rep­re­sen­ta­tion. The arti­cle con­clud­ed, “[N]ational debates, leg­isla­tive stud­ies, court rul­ings and blue-rib­bon com­mis­sion rec­om­men­da­tions in 2008 clar­i­fied even more rea­sons why cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment is an unwork­able system.”

The Hartford Courant has called for an end to the death penal­ty in Connecticut, cit­ing its costs and risks. The paper called a leg­isla­tive committee’s work toward abol­ish­ing Connecticut’s death penal­ty ​“brave,” and said the state’s cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem was ​“unwork­able, not to men­tion expen­sive, unfair, and risky.” They quot­ed State Sen. Mary Anne Handley who said: ​“The death penal­ty is nei­ther swift nor cer­tain. It may even be cer­tain that it’s not going to hap­pen.” The edi­to­r­i­al con­clud­ed, ​“The state’s goal should be to keep soci­ety safe. It can…

The Los Angeles Times recent­ly edi­to­ri­al­ized about the futil­i­ty of keep­ing the death penal­ty in California. ​“Let’s end this bru­tal, anachro­nis­tic prac­tice,” of the death penal­ty, the paper wrote. ​“Inefficiency and cost­li­ness are obvi­ous­ly only a small part of what’s wrong with the death penal­ty.” The edi­to­r­i­al con­tin­ued, “[C]apital pun­ish­ment strikes dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly at dis­ad­van­taged groups, and capri­cious­ly at oth­ers,” adding, ​“We doubt its deter­rent effect as well.” With California fac­ing bank­rupt­cy, the paper finds it ​“shock­ing and depress­ing that California keeps hun­dreds of peo­ple locked up for decades await­ing execution…

The Houston Chronicle is call­ing on Texas Governor Rick Perry to delay the exe­cu­tion of Larry Swearingen, which is sched­uled for January 27. The Chronicle notes that the foren­sic sci­en­tist who tes­ti­fied about the time of death of the vic­tim at Swearingen’s tri­al now believes the death occurred lat­er, a time at which Swearingen was in police cus­tody on anoth­er mat­ter. Five oth­er physi­cians and foren­sic experts con­curred that the mur­der occurred after the time that Swearingen was arrest­ed on a traf­fic mat­ter. Blood and hair sam­ples from the victim…

The prison news mag­a­zine The Angolite fea­tures an in-depth piece on the use of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment around the world in its recent iss­sue. Citing a 2008 Amnesty International report, the arti­cle notes that China, Iran, Pakistan, Iraq, and the United States lead the world in exe­cu­tions. Japan, the only oth­er indus­tri­al­ized democ­ra­cy besides the U.S. that uses cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, aver­ages five exe­cu­tions a year but is known for inhu­mane death row con­di­tions. Author and inmate Lane Nelson details the con­di­tions, the meth­ods, and the con­tro­ver­sies sur­round­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in China,…

The News & Record of North Carolina recent­ly fea­tured an edi­to­r­i­al encour­ag­ing the state’s leg­is­la­ture and gov­er­nor to abol­ish the death penal­ty. The edi­to­r­i­al not­ed the con­tro­ver­sies that have sur­round­ed the use of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the state, includ­ing dis­agree­ment about lethal injec­tions and the incon­sis­tent way the penal­ty has been applied. The declin­ing num­ber of death sen­tences and the exten­sive time need­ed before an exe­cu­tion can take place led the paper to con­clude the state ​“should do away with the death penal­ty and con­vert the sen­tence of every condemned…

by Dr. Andrew D. MoranLondon Metropolitan UniversityAmerican Politics Group Annual ConferenceSt. Anne’s College, University of OxfordE-mail: a.​moran@​londonmet.​ac.​uk

A recent edi­to­r­i­al in the Washington Post cit­ed trends and sta­tis­tics from DPIC’s 2008 Year End Report in call­ing for an end to the death penal­ty in Maryland. The paper urged Maryland law­mak­ers to ​“heed the march of his­to­ry” and not­ed that use of the death penal­ty is declin­ing around the coun­try: ​“According to the Death Penalty Information Center, a non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tion that stud­ies cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, exe­cu­tions nation­wide reached a 14-year low in 2008, with only 37 exe­cu­tions car­ried out, com­pared with 42 in 2007. A full 95 per­cent of…