Articles

A new report by Rob Warden (pic­tured), Executive Director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions, explores the con­di­tions that led to the end of Illinois​’s death penal­ty in 2011. Warden says abo­li­tion came about because of a series of for­tu­itous cir­cum­stances, but also because of the work of count­less attor­neys, aca­d­e­mics, jour­nal­ists and activists who took advan­tage of these devel­op­ments. The cav­al­cade of exon­er­a­tions from death row,…

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The Sacramento Bee announced in an edi­to­r­i­al that it is revers­ing its his­toric 150-year sup­port of the death penal­ty and endors­ing the repeal of California​’s cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment law. The edi­to­r­i­al called the state’s death penal­ty an​“illu­sion,” which is rarely car­ried out, despite the large num­ber of death sen­tences. It cit­ed the high cost of the death penal­ty as one of the rea­sons for sup­port­ing repeal, noting,…

A recent edi­to­r­i­al in the Paradise Post of California called the state’s death penal­ty a​“cha­rade” and rec­om­mend­ed that it be end­ed. The edi­to­r­i­al cit­ed fig­ures released by the state’s Legislative Analyst’s Office, which found that repeal­ing the death penal­ty would​“save state and coun­ties about $100 mil­lion annu­al­ly in mur­der tri­als, death penal­ty appeals and cor­rec­tions in the first few years, grow­ing to about $130 million annually…

A recent New York Times edi­to­r­i­al encour­aged the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles to reduce the sen­tence of death row inmate Warren Hill to life. Hill is fac­ing exe­cu­tion on July 18. The edi­to­r­i­al not­ed that Mr. Hill’s intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ties, includ­ing an IQ of 70, led the tri­al judge to find him men­tal­ly retard­ed. Georgia’s Supreme Court, how­ev­er, over­turned the judge’s rul­ing because men­tal retar­da­tion had not…

John J. Donohue (pic­tured), a research asso­ciate for the National Bureau of Economic Research and a pro­fes­sor at Stanford Law School, recent­ly high­light­ed con­tin­u­ing prob­lems with the death penal­ty sys­tem, forty years after it was struck down for being applied in an arbi­trary man­ner. Professor Donohue wrote that despite​“new and improved” statutes accept­ed by the Court when it rein­stat­ed the death penal­ty in 1976,​“four…

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The edi­tors of the Birmingham News in Alabama recenl­ty called upon a tri­al court to over­rule a jury’s 10 – 2 rec­om­men­da­tion for death in the case of Esaw Jackson because of his men­tal dis­abil­i­ties. While not­ing that in many states Jackson would not even be eli­gi­ble for the death penal­ty fol­low­ing a non-unan­i­­mous vote, the News added that an IQ test, con­duct­ed by a state expert on Jackson, showed an IQ of 56, well below…

A recent edi­to­r­i­al in the New York Times called for greater atten­tion to be paid by courts to inmates on death row with severe men­tal ill­ness:​“The death penal­ty sys­tem fails to take ade­quate account of severe men­tal ill­ness, whether at tri­al, at sen­tenc­ing or in post­con­vic­tion pro­ceed­ings,” the paper wrote. The edi­to­r­i­al praised Governor John Kasich of Ohio for grant­i­ng a two-week reprieve to Abdul Awkal on June 5 just pri­or to his…

A recent arti­cle in the Justice Quarterly by Professor James Acker (pic­tured) and Rose Bellandi of the University at Albany, New York, exam­ined whether there is an irrec­on­cil­able con­flict between recent reforms to pre­vent the exe­cu­tion of the inno­cent and the tra­di­tion­al goals of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. The authors stud­ied recent changes to Maryland’s death penal­ty statute that were designed to reduce the risk of wrong­ful exe­cu­tions while try­ing to maintain the…