Publications & Testimony

In a recent op-ed in the National Law Journal, his­to­ri­an John Bessler described the ambiva­lence among American founders toward the death penal­ty. He not­ed, ​“Although ear­ly U.S. laws autho­rized exe­cu­tions, the founders great­ly admired a now lit­tle-known Italian writer, Cesare Beccaria, who fer­vent­ly opposed cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. They also were fas­ci­nat­ed by the pen­i­ten­tiary sys­tem’s poten­tial to elim­i­nate cru­el pun­ish­ments.” Thomas Jefferson wrote,…

A group of 15 for­mer state and fed­er­al judges, includ­ing a for­mer Chief Justice of the Missouri Supreme Court, has filed an ami­cus brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in sup­port of a stay of exe­cu­tion for Mark Christeson in Missouri. Christeson is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed on October 29, but the judges said he has not received ​“any mean­ing­ful fed­er­al review of his death sen­tence.” In their brief, orga­nized by the Constitution Project,…

Pope Francis called for an end to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in an address on October 23 to the International Association on Penal Law. ​“It is impos­si­ble to imag­ine that states today can­not make use of anoth­er means than cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment to defend peo­ples’ lives from an unjust aggres­sor,” the Catholic leader said. He cit­ed the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which says that the death penal­ty can be used only if it is the ​“only pos­si­ble way of effec­tive­ly defend­ing human lives…

In a Gallup poll released on October 23, sup­port for the death penal­ty was 63%, remain­ing with­in the mar­gin of error of a 40-year low of 60% last year. These results rep­re­sent a dra­mat­ic shift in Americans’ views on the death penal­ty since the 1990’s, when sup­port for the death penal­ty peaked at 80%. Opposition to the death penal­ty has grown sig­nif­i­cant­ly among Democrats, more than dou­bling over the last 20 years, from 22% in 1994 to 46% today. When offered the alternative…

Two recent inter­na­tion­al gath­er­ings empha­sized con­cerns about the death penal­ty in the U.S. and around the world. On October 14, the Organization of American States host­ed an address by the President of the International Institute of Human Rights, Jean-Paul Costa, focus­ing on the rel­a­tive­ly few coun­tries still prac­tic­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in North and South America. On October 21, the Delegation of the European Union to the U.S. pre­sent­ed a pan­el dis­cus­sion fea­tur­ing DPIC’s Executive…

On October 20, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear Chappell v. Ayala (No. 13 – 1428), a death penal­ty case from California in which all the black and Hispanic poten­tial jurors were struck from the defen­dan­t’s tri­al. Hector Ayala was con­vict­ed in 1989 of three mur­ders in San Diego. At his tri­al, Ayala’s attor­neys argued that the pros­e­cu­tor was improp­er­ly strik­ing jurors on the basis of race. The judge reviewed the pros­e­cu­tor’s expla­na­tion for the…

The same Commission that freed for­mer death row inmates Henry McCollum and Leon Brown in September exon­er­at­ed anoth­er man who had been con­vict­ed of mur­der, Willie Womble (l.). The North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission freed Womble on October 17, dis­miss­ing his 1976 first-degree mur­der con­vic­tion and life sen­tence. Womble had been con­vict­ed of act­ing as a look­out while anoth­er man, Joseph Perry, robbed a convenience…

A recent ret­ro­spec­tive in the Fort Myers Florida Weekly on the state’s death penal­ty traced some of the prob­lems that have arisen since Florida resumed exe­cu­tions in 1979. During the exe­cu­tion of Jesse Tafero in 1990, six-inch flames shot from the prisoner’s head, and three sep­a­rate jolts of elec­tric­i­ty were required to kill him. Prison offi­cials attrib­uted it to ​“inad­ver­tent human error.” In the exe­cu­tion of Pedro Medina in 1997, flames and smoke again spewed out…

DPIC has recent­ly added four pod­casts to our new series on impor­tant facts about the death penal­ty in each state. Seven state pod­casts are now avail­able: Michigan, Wisconsin, Maine, Minnesota, North Dakota, Alaska, and Hawaii. We expect to add new episodes each week, with two more com­ing tomorow (Oct. 17). The series has begun with states that have abol­ished the death…