Articles

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 for exe­cu­tions to be carried…

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 edi­to­ri­al­ized about the…

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 arbi­trari­ness of its appli­ca­tion, and…

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 rep­u­ta­tion, the…

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 the death penal­ty in…

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 orig­i­nal pro­ceed­ings were unfair.

A recent edi­to­r­i­al in the Miami Herald applaud­ed a court deci­sion find­ing that the costs of rep­re­s­en­ing defen­dants in Florida death penal­ty cas­es should be kept sep­a­rate from the judges’ annu­al bud­get. A state judge held it would be uncon­sti­tu­tion­al to have judges mak­ing deci­sions about attor­neys’ fees when the mon­ey for such expens­es comes from the judges’ own resources. The edi­to­r­i­al stat­ed, ​“We depend on the court sys­tem to dis­pense jus­tice — peri­od. Not jus­tice on…