Publications & Testimony

On May 12, the edi­to­r­i­al board of USA Today affirmed its oppo­si­tion to the death penal­ty in an edi­to­r­i­al urg­ing that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev be sen­tenced to life with­out parole, rather than the death penal­ty, for his role in the Boston marathon bomb­ing. ​“Laws aren’t writ­ten for a sin­gle indi­vid­ual, and the death penal­ty applies to many peo­ple,” the edi­to­r­i­al said. ​“Tsarnaev and oth­er infa­mous defen­dants … demon­strate the penal­ty’s arbi­trary nature. While Tsarnaev has a superb legal…

Two promi­nent Georgians, for­mer Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice Norman Fletcher (pic­tured, l.), and David J. Burge (pic­tured, r.), the Chairman of Georgia’s 5^th Congressional District Republican Party, have recent­ly voiced their oppo­si­tion to the death penal­ty. Justice Fletcher vot­ed to uphold numer­ous death sen­tences dur­ing his 15 years on Georgia’s high­est court. Since retir­ing from the Court in 2005, his views have changed. ​“With wis­dom gained over the…

A recent edi­to­r­i­al in The News & Observer (Raleigh, NC) has crit­i­cized leg­isla­tive efforts to restart North Carolina’s death penal­ty as ​“ret­ro­gres­sive” and ​“macabre.” The edi­to­r­i­al oppos­es a bill that would allow exe­cu­tions to resume in North Carolina by ​“expand­ing the list of med­ical per­son­nel who can mon­i­tor exe­cu­tions.” In 2007, the North Carolina Medical Board said that doc­tor par­tic­i­pa­tion in exe­cu­tions vio­lates pro­fes­sion­al ethics, effectively…

Harris County (Houston), Texas, has exe­cut­ed more men and women than any oth­er coun­ty in the United States, but a recent poll shows that a strong major­i­ty of its res­i­dents now sup­port alter­na­tive sen­tences. A report by the Kinder Institute for Urban Research at Rice University found that only 28% of respon­dents in Harris County pre­fer the death penal­ty to life with­out parole as pun­ish­ment for first-degree mur­der. The poll also found that over­all sup­port for the death penalty…

Today, DPIC is post­ing the first item in a new series: ​“50 Facts About the Death Penalty.” Each week­day for the next 10 weeks, we will share a short but sig­nif­i­cant fact about cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. These items, which have accom­pa­ny­ing images, will cov­er top­ics includ­ing inno­cence, pub­lic opin­ion, deter­rence, race, and more. This series is intend­ed as a resource for any­one look­ing to learn more about the death penal­ty. Each of…

Calling the death penal­ty ​“an instru­ment of imper­fect jus­tice,” Governor Jack Markell (pic­tured) of Delaware announced on May 7 that he will sign the death penal­ty repeal bill under con­sid­er­a­tion in the state leg­is­la­ture if the bill reach­es his desk. The Delaware Senate passed repeal in April by a vote of 11 – 9. The House Judiciary Committee is expect­ed to hold a hear­ing soon. Markell had not pre­vi­ous­ly tak­en a stance on abol­ish­ing the death…

The week of the 25^th anniver­sary of Florida​’s grue­some botched elec­tric chair exe­cu­tion of Jesse Tafero (pic­tured), the Tennessee Supreme Court began hear­ing a chal­lenge to the admin­is­tra­tion of a state law that would res­ur­rect the use of that State’s elec­tric chair if lethal injec­tion drugs are unavail­able. On May 6, 2015, the Tennessee jus­tices heard argu­ment on death-row inmates’ right to know which method of execution…

In an inter­view with Salon, Anthony Ray Hinton (pic­tured, l.), the 152^nd death row exoneree, spoke about his wrong­ful con­vic­tion and spend­ing 30 years on Alabama​’s death row for a crime he did not com­mit. ​“They had every inten­tion of exe­cut­ing an inno­cent man,” Hinton said. ​“If you’re poor and black you don’t stand a chance.” Hinton spoke about the inad­e­quate rep­re­sen­ta­tion he received at his tri­al: ​“My bal­lis­tics expert was blind in one eye. He was…

The num­ber of peo­ple sen­tenced to death in Virginia has plum­met­ed from 40 in the years 1998 – 2005 to only 6 from 2006 through April 2015. A recent study sug­gests that improve­ments in cap­i­tal rep­re­sen­ta­tion in the state may have played a sig­nif­i­cant role in that dra­mat­ic change. In 2004, Virginia estab­lished four region­al cap­i­tal defend­er offices, which are com­plete­ly devot­ed to han­dling death penal­ty cas­es. The year before the defend­er offices opened, Virginia juries imposed 6 death sentences,…

On April 21, 2015, Oktibbeha County (Mississippi) District Attorney Forrest Allgood announced that he would drop charges against death row inmate Willie…