Publications & Testimony

DPIC recent­ly pub­lished a new page that presents exe­cu­tion data for each state and each year since 1976. This allows users to more eas­i­ly see exe­cu­tion trends in states over time. We have also recent­ly post­ed updat­ed state data from​“Death Row, USA.” As of October 1, 2013, there were 3,088 inmates on death row, con­tin­u­ing the decline in death row pop­u­la­tion since 2000. As devel­op­ments sur­round­ing lethal injec­tion con­tin­ue to emerge,…

In a recent op-ed in the New York Times, attor­neys Megan McCracken and Jennifer Moreno argued that the veil of secre­cy that many states have placed over their exe­cu­tion process vio­lates defen­dants’ con­sti­tu­tion­al rights and​“deprives the pub­lic of informed debate.” The authors pro­vid­ed numer­ous exam­ples where inmates exe­cut­ed with drugs from com­pound­ing phar­ma­cies or with nov­el mix­es of new drugs exhib­it­ed signs of consciousness and…

On April 14, the North Carolina Supreme Court will hear appeals in the cas­es of the four inmates whose death sen­tences were reduced to life with­out parole under the state’s Racial Justice Act. North Carolina passed the Act in 2009, allow­ing death row inmates to use sta­tis­ti­cal stud­ies to show that racial bias affect­ed their tri­als. The first four cas­es were heard in 2012. The evi­dence pre­sent­ed at hear­ings for defen­dants Marcus Robinson (l.),…

In 2011, the Chief Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court appoint­ed a blue-rib­bon Commission to review the state’s death penal­ty and to make rec­om­men­da­tions for reform. On April 10, the Commission pre­pared to announce 56 rec­om­men­da­tions for chang­ing the death penal­ty,…

A recent study by researchers at Cornell Law School found that the gen­der of the mur­der vic­tim may influ­ence whether a defen­dant receives the death penal­ty. Using data from 1976 to 2007 in Delaware, the study found that in cas­es with female vic­tims, 47.1% result­ed in death sen­tences, while in those involv­ing male vic­tims, only 32.3% were sen­tenced to death. The researchers looked at a num­ber of fac­tors oth­er than the vic­tim’s gen­der that might have affected sentencing…

In Ford v. Wainwright (1986), the U.S. Supreme Court banned the exe­cu­tion of inmates who were insane. In a dis­sent­ing opin­ion, Justice Rehnquist and Chief Justice Burger warned that the major­i­ty deci­sion​“offers an invi­ta­tion to those who have noth­ing to lose…to advance entire­ly spu­ri­ous claims of insan­i­ty.” A new study has exam­ined cas­es since 1986 in which death row inmates filed claims of men­tal incom­pe­tence and found that the…

Defending a death penal­ty case costs about four times as much as defend­ing a case where the death penal­ty is not sought, accord­ing to a new study by the Kansas Judicial Council. Examining 34 poten­tial death-penal­­ty cas­es from 2004 – 2011, the study found that defense costs for death penal­ty tri­als aver­aged $395,762 per case, com­pared to $98,963 per case when the death penal­ty was not sought. Costs incurred by the tri­al court showed a similar disparity:…

Ken Rose has rep­re­sent­ed peo­ple con­demned to death in the south for 30 years and recent­ly described his expe­ri­ence with this​“flawed sys­tem:”​“The sys­tem reflects our bias­es and blind spots,” he said.​“Just like us, it is sus­cep­ti­ble to error and prej­u­dice and, some­times, an indis­crim­i­nate desire for revenge. Like our coun­try, it favors the priv­i­leged and takes the heav­i­est toll on the poor and men­tal­ly ill.” As an exam­ple, Rose told the story…

Two recent reports released in Ohio show a decline in the use of the death penal­ty, with one of the reports rais­ing con­cerns about the fair­ness of the sys­tem. The num­ber of death-penal­­ty cas­es filed in Ohio in 2013 was the low­est num­ber in over 30 years. The num­ber of cap­i­tal indict­ments was down 28% from 2012 and 63% from 2011, accord­ing to a report from Ohioans to Stop Executions, ​“The Death Lottery: How Race and Geography Determine Who Goes to…

On March 27, a court in Japan sus­pend­ed the death sen­tence and ordered the release and retri­al of Iwao Hakamada, who had been impris­oned for 48 years, most­ly on death row. The 78-year-old man is the world’s longest-serv­ing death row inmate. Presiding judge Hiroaki Murayama said,​“It is unbear­ably unjust to pro­long deten­tion of the defen­dant any fur­ther. The pos­si­bil­i­ty of his inno­cence has become clear to a respectable degree.” Hakamada was…