Articles

A recent New York Times edi­to­r­i­al described the ​“hor­rif­ic scene” of Clayton Lockett’s botched exe­cu­tion and called on Oklahoma to “[fol­low] oth­er gov­er­nors and leg­is­la­tures in ban­ning exe­cu­tions, rec­og­niz­ing that the American admin­is­tra­tion of death does not func­tion.” The edi­tors not­ed the Oklahoma Supreme Court’s tem­po­rary halt to the exe­cu­tion and point­ed to polit­i­cal pres­sure as a pos­si­ble expla­na­tion for why the Court then…

In advance of a New Hampshire Senate vote expect­ed on April 17, the Boston Globe pub­lished an edi­to­r­i­al call­ing on their neigh­bor­ing state’s leg­is­la­tors to sup­port repeal of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. The edi­to­r­i­al high­light­ed the bipar­ti­san sup­port for abo­li­tion in the New Hampshire House, and Gov. Maggie Hassan’s pledge to sign the repeal bill if it pass­es the Senate. Among their rea­sons for endors­ing the mea­sure, the Globe said,…

A recent edi­to­r­i­al in the Jackson Free Press in Mississippi called for a halt to the sched­uled exe­cu­tion of Michelle Byrom, say­ing she is ​“clear­ly not guilty of the crime for which the state plans to exe­cute her next week.” The edi­to­r­i­al not­ed that Byrom’s son had con­fessed to the crime four times.” He said the sto­ry he orig­i­nal­ly told sher­iffs impli­cat­ing his moth­er was made up because he was ​“scared, con­fused and high” when he was inter­ro­gat­ed. The…

In an edi­to­r­i­al sup­port­ing Washington Governor Jay Inslee’s recent­ly-announced death penal­ty mora­to­ri­um, the News Tribune (Tacoma) said its edi­to­r­i­al board ​“has grown increas­ing­ly uncom­fort­able with cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in recent years, and we now share Inslee’s feel­ing that Washington should move beyond it.” The paper said the gov­er­nor’s deci­sion ​“forced a wel­come new dis­cus­sion” of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. While acknowl­edg­ing the heinous­ness of many…

A recent edi­to­r­i­al in the Montgomery Advertiser crit­i­cized a pro­pos­al by Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange to speed up death penal­ty appeals. His pro­posed leg­is­la­tion would require two parts of the appeal process to essen­tial­ly run con­cur­rent­ly. The edi­to­r­i­al cau­tioned that lack of ade­quate rep­re­sen­ta­tion for death penal­ty defen­dants would make the accel­er­at­ed process more prob­lem­at­ic. The paper con­clud­ed, ​“Anything that smacks of haste in capital punishment…

In a recent arti­cle in the Atlantic, Marc Bookman com­pared the path through the jus­tice sys­tem of two co-defen­dants sen­tenced to death in Florida after com­mit­ting mur­der in 1977. Beauford White was elec­tro­cut­ed in 1987, despite his tri­al jury vot­ing 12 – 0 for a life sen­tence. The tri­al judge over­rode that rec­om­men­da­tion and imposed death. White’s co-defen­dant, John Ferguson, lived for anoth­er 26 years before being exe­cut­ed in 2013.

National and local media have focused sig­nif­i­cant atten­tion on DPIC’s recent 2013 Year End Report. Coverage has includ­ed pieces in the New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, CNN, on the wires of the Associated Press and Reuters, and in hun­dreds of oth­er arti­cles and edi­to­ri­als. Papers high­light­ed the main theme of…

Jeffrey Toobin, writ­ing in The New Yorker, used the cur­rent scram­ble among states to pro­cure the drugs for lethal injec­tions as a par­a­digm of the much longer effort to make the death penal­ty palat­able to the American pub­lic. ​“The sto­ry of the death penal­ty in this coun­try,” he wrote, ​“illus­trates a char­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly American faith in a tech­no­log­i­cal solu­tion to any prob­lem.” However, Toobin con­clud­ed, tech­nol­o­gy can not cov­er up the broad­er prob­lems of capital…

In an op-ed in the Knoxville News-Sentinel, Tennessean Drew Johnson evoked con­ser­v­a­tives’ inten­tions to ​“pro­tect inno­cent life, pro­mote finan­cial respon­si­bil­i­ty and sup­port gov­ern­ment pro­grams that real­ly work” in crit­i­ciz­ing the death penal­ty. Johnson, a Senior Fellow at Taxpayers Protection Alliance and founder of the Beacon Center of Tennessee, cit­ed the many exon­er­a­tions from death row as anoth­er rea­son to chal­lenge cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment: ​“Life is too precious to…

A recent edi­to­r­i­al in the Dallas Morning News high­light­ed the voic­es of promi­nent con­ser­v­a­tives who now oppose cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, includ­ing for­mer Texas Congressman Ron Paul and con­ser­v­a­tive polit­i­cal leader Richard Viguerie. The paper not­ed the new part­ner­ship between the stu­dent-cen­tered orga­ni­za­tion Young Americans for Liberty and Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty. The editorial…