Articles

A recent edi­to­r­i­al in the Nebraska Star-Herald indi­cat­ed a shift in its posi­tion on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Although the paper has always sup­port­ed the death penal­ty in the past, its lat­est edi­to­r­i­al described the death penal­ty as​“a mock­ery of jus­tice” and a​“cha­rade.” The edi­tors con­tin­ued to express the belief that some mur­der­ers might deserve cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, but the infre­quen­cy and unpredictability of…

The Dallas Morning News used the recent repeal of the death penal­ty in Maryland as an occa­sion to advo­cate for death-penal­­ty reform in Texas. The edi­tors com­ment­ed on the over­all impro­pri­ety of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment:​“At best, the death penal­ty is selec­tive­ly used state-sup­­port­ed ret­ri­bu­tion, which has no place in a civ­i­lized soci­ety.” The edi­to­r­i­al sup­port­ed six pend­ing bills aimed at improv­ing the fair­ness of the…

Texas death-row inmate Andre Thomas has been diag­nosed with para­noid schiz­o­phre­nia, and audi­to­ry hal­lu­ci­na­tions drove him to gouge out both of his eyes. Nevertheless, pros­e­cu­tors still believe he…

A recent edi­to­r­i­al in the Great Falls Tribune in Montana out­lined some of the key prob­lems with the death penal­ty as the state leg­is­la­ture con­sid­ers its repeal. The edi­tors expressed con­cerns about the risks of mis­take with exe­cu­tions:​“There is no way to take back an exe­cu­tion. That rea­son alone pro­vides good cause to elim­i­nate the death penal­ty in Montana.” The paper also not­ed that vic­tims’ fam­i­lies wait for decades…

A recent edi­to­r­i­al in Florida​’s Tampa Bay Times called for law­mak­ers to study the state’s death penal­ty because of its high num­ber of exon­er­a­tions and death sen­tences. Using infor­ma­tion from DPIC’s recent 2012 Year End Report, the edi­to­r­i­al not­ed that 2012 marked the sec­ond con­sec­u­tive year in which the state led the coun­try in new death sen­tences. The edi­to­r­i­al sug­gest­ed that one of the rea­sons for these numbers was…

DPIC’s 2012 Year End Report received exten­sive media cov­er­age in the U.S. and inter­na­tion­al­ly. Coverage includ­ed pieces by the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Associated Press, Reuters, New York Times, CNN, and hun­dreds of oth­er out­lets. National broad­cast out­lets such as NPR, MSNBC, and CBS Radio also ran pieces. Many papers…

Following the themes of DPIC’s 2012 Year End Report, the lead edi­to­r­i­al for Jan. 2 in the New York Times con­clud­ed that​“cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment is cru­el and unusu­al” as judged by the coun­try’s​“evolv­ing stan­dards” of decen­cy and​“should be abol­ished” by the Supreme Court. The Times​’s edi­to­r­i­al not­ed the few­er num­ber of states car­ry­ing out exe­cu­tions, the lack of any mean­ing­ful ratio­nale, the…

In a recent op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle, death penal­ty schol­ar Franklin Zimring sug­gest­ed that the close (52 – 48%) vote in November on California​’s Proposition 34 to end cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment means the repeal effort is far from over. Zimring, a law pro­fes­sor at the University of California, Berkeley, wrote,​“For decades, it has been assumed that the death penal­ty was the third rail of California pol­i­tics …. Measured against that…

A recent edi­to­r­i­al in The Oregonian, one of the state’s major news­pa­pers, endorsed a bill in the upcom­ing leg­isla­tive ses­sion that could result in the repeal of the death penal­ty. The bill, to be intro­duced by Rep. Mitch Greenlick, would begin the process of amend­ing the state’s con­sti­tu­tion through a ref­er­en­dum as ear­ly as November 2014. The edi­tors wrote,​“5 states — New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Illinois and New Mexico — have abandoned…

A recent edi­to­r­i­al in the New York Times called for the end of the death penal­ty in New Hampshire. The edi­to­r­i­al high­light­ed the case of Michael Addison, who is the only pris­on­er on the state’s death row. Addison was sen­tenced to death in 2008 for fatal­ly shoot­ing a police offi­cer. The state Supreme Court recent­ly held hear­ings for Addison, who is seek­ing a new tri­al or sen­tenc­ing hear­ing because the…