Articles

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

The Dallas Morning News renewed its call for a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions in Texas because of the numer­ous errors in the state’s death penal­ty sys­tem. The paper high­light­ed the cas­es of Michael Blair and Charles Hood as exam­ples of how the sys­tem has bro­ken down. Blair was exon­er­at­ed in 2008 after 14 years on death row. DNA evi­dence revealed that he had not been the mur­der­er of 7‑year-old Ashley Estel in 1993,…

A recent edi­to­r­i­al in The Journal Star (Lincoln, Nebraska) expressed the paper’s shock at how the death penal­ty dis­tort­ed a state crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion to the extent that six inno­cent peo­ple were con­vict­ed of a mur­der they did not com­mit. Defendants were pres­sured to offer erro­neous tes­ti­mo­ny through the threat of fac­ing the death penal­ty.​“The wrong­ful con­vic­tions show how the death penal­ty can dis­tort the search for jus­tice,” the editorial…