Publications & Testimony

On November 10, on the eve of Veterans’ Day, the Death Penalty Information Center released a new report, Battle Scars: Military Veterans and the Death Penalty. The report examines the plight of U.S. military veterans who have been sentenced to death, estimating that about 300 veterans are currently on death row. Many of these veterans suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) or other mental disabilities caused or exacerbated by their time in combat. Often when these veterans were on…

On November 8, 1965, 50 years ago, the United Kingdom abolished capital punishment. On that date, Parliament transmitted to Queen Elizabeth II for royal assent the Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act of 1965. The Act, which ended capital punishment in England, Wales, and Scotland subject to Parliamentary review after 5 years, took effect on November 9, 1965. When Parliament confirmed the Act in December 1969, the abolition of capital punishment in the United Kingdom became permanent. The…

Calling the punishment “simply wrong,” United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon has vowed to “never stop calling for an end to the death penalty.” Speaking at the launch of a new book by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, “Moving Away from the Death Penalty: Arguments, Trends and Perspectives,” the Secretary-General highlighted the worldwide decline of capital punishment, noting that “more and more countries and States are abolishing the death penalty.” Data from the…

Oklahoma County has executed 41 prisoners since 1976, the third highest in the country, and is among the 2% of American counties responsible for 56% of the men and women currently on the nation’s death rows. A ThinkProgress report chronicles the decades-long pattern of misconduct committed under its long-time District Attorney “Cowboy Bob” Macy (pictured). Macy sent 54 people to death row during his 21 years as District Attorney, more than any other prosecutor in the U.S. in that period. “Macy…

Prisoners sentenced to death in the small number of U.S. counties that most aggressively pursue the death penalty often suffer the “double whammy” of getting “both the deadliest prosecutors in America and some of the country’s worst capital defense lawyers,” according to an article in Slate by Robert L. Smith. In reviewing the the unusually high numbers of death verdicts from 3 counties that are near the top of the nation in disproportionately producing death sentences over the last 5 years…

Ernest Johnson (pictured) is scheduled to be executed in Missouri on November 3, despite strong evidence that he is intellectually disabled and therefore ineligible for execution. Johnson has shown signs of intellectual disability throughout his life: he walked and talked much later than his siblings, he was twice held back a grade in school, academic test scores placed him in the bottom 1 – 2% in math and reading, and his siblings say he struggled with basic skills like using a knife and fork.

The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument in Foster v. Chatman on November 2. Timothy Foster, an intellectually limited black teenager charged with killing an elderly white woman, was convicted and sentenced to death in 1987 by an all-white jury after Georgia prosecutors struck every black member of the jury pool. Foster argued that prosecutors impermissibly exercised their strikes on the basis of race, in violation of the Court’s 1986 decision in Batson v. Kentucky, to keep African Americans…

The U.S. Department of Justice released its annual FBI Uniform Crime Report for 2014, reporting no change in the national murder rate since 2013. In the Northeast, the region with the fewest executions, the murder rate declined 5.7%, from 3.5 to 3.3 per 100,000 population. The murder rate was 1.7 times higher in the South, which carries out the most executions of any region. That region saw a 3.4% increase in the homicide rate, and its 5.5 murders per 100,00 population remained the highest rate…

Capital punishment is dominating the discussion in the runoff election between James E. Stewart, Sr. and Dhu Thompson to succeed acting Caddo Parish, Louisiana District Attorney Dale Cox. Cox’s controversial statements about the death penalty — including that the state needs to “kill more people” — have focused national attention on the parish, which ranks among the two percent of U.S. counties responsible for 56 percent of the inmates on death row nationwide. On October 27, defense attorneys…