Publications & Testimony

As Nebraska​’s leg­is­la­ture began debate on a bill to repeal the death penal­ty, one sen­a­tor explained how his views on the issue had evolved. In an op-ed in the Lincoln Journal Star, Sen. Colby Coash said that his par­tic­i­pa­tion with a group cel­e­brat­ing an exe­cu­tion led him to oppose the death penal­ty: ​“I made a deci­sion dur­ing my shame that I would no longer be a part of some­one’s death.” A sec­ond influ­ence was his con­ver­sa­tions with rel­a­tives of mur­der vic­tims. He…

Women Who Kill Men: California Courts, Gender, and the Press exam­ines the role that gen­der played in the tri­als of women accused of mur­der in California between 1870 – 1958. The authors trace the chang­ing views of the pub­lic towards women and how these views may have affect­ed the out­comes of the cas­es. Some defen­dants faced the death penal­ty and were exe­cut­ed; some were spared. Often the pub­lic was deeply fas­ci­nat­ed with all aspects of the tri­al and…

Colorado recent­ly set an exe­cu­tion date in August for Nathan Dunlap, who has been con­vict­ed of mul­ti­ple mur­ders. This would be first exe­cu­tion in the state in 16 years. In an edi­to­r­i­al, the Aurora Sentinel rec­om­mend­ed that the gov­er­nor spare his life, not because of doubts about his guilt, but because of doubts about oth­er aspects of the process that led to his death sen­tence: ​“There is sim­ply too much doubt about the effec­tive­ness of the death penal­ty. There is too…

Nancy Mullane, a reporter for KALW Radio in San Francisco, is one of the few reporters to vis­it California​’s death row at San Quentin Prison. In the block she vis­it­ed, there were 500 inmates, in 4‑by-10 foot cells, stacked five tiers high. The cells are about the size of a walk-in clos­et. Many of the inmates have been on death row for over 20 years. Inmates can show­er every oth­er day. One of the inmates she met with, Justin Helzer, had stabbed him­self in both eyes. He later…

On May 6, more than 20 for­mer judges and pros­e­cu­tors, reli­gious lead­ers, men­tal health experts, and many oth­ers called on Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper (pic­tured) to com­mute Nathan Dunlap’s death sen­tence to life in prison with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole. The group’s state­ment cit­ed racial and geo­graph­ic dis­par­i­ties in the state’s appli­ca­tion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment as rea­sons why Dunlap should not be exe­cut­ed. Among those send­ing let­ters supporting…

The Death Penalty Information Center is pleased to offer a new set of data illus­trat­ing the geo­graph­ic arbi­trari­ness of the death penal­ty. The new sec­tion, The Clustering of the Death Penalty, demon­strates that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment is actu­al­ly car­ried out in only a small per­cent­age of U.S. juris­dic­tions. DPIC ana­lyzed the coun­ties with­in states that are respon­si­ble for the most exe­cu­tions, the most death row inmates, and the most recent death sen­tences. For exam­ple, one map…

UPDATE: Execution stayed by Mississippi Supreme Court. Since 1994, Willie Manning, an inmate on Mississippi​’s death row, has been request­ing DNA test­ing of crit­i­cal evi­dence recov­ered from the crime scene of the mur­ders that led to his con­vic­tion. Manning’s con­vic­tion was based main­ly on cir­cum­stan­tial evi­dence. In April the Mississippi Supreme Court nar­row­ly (5 – 4) denied the DNA test­ing being requested.

In April, the International Commission Against the Death Penalty (ICDP) released a new report titled, How States Abolish the Death Penalty. The report exam­ines the expe­ri­ences of 13 coun­tries, includ­ing Argentina, France, Haiti, the Philippines, South Africa, and 2 states in the U.S. (Connecticut and New Mexico), in their paths to end­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. The report not­ed that some states took inter­me­di­ary steps to abo­li­tion, includ­ing estab­lish­ing an official…

The lat­est edi­tion of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund’s Death Row USA showed a con­tin­u­ing decline in the num­ber of peo­ple on death rows across the coun­try. As of January 1, 2013, there were 3,125 inmates under a sen­tence of death, a decrease of 43 from a year ago. Over the last decade, the size of death row has dropped almost 16%, from 3,703 inmates in 2000 to 3,125 in 2013. California con­tin­ued to have the largest death row pop­u­la­tion (727), followed…

An edi­to­r­i­al in the Miami Herald called on Florida Governor Rick Scott (pic­tured) to veto a bill recent­ly passed by the leg­is­la­ture requir­ing the gov­er­nor to sign a death war­rant with­in 30 days after state Supreme Court review, with the exe­cu­tion tak­ing place with­in 180 days after that. The edi­to­r­i­al list­ed sev­er­al death row inmates who were exon­er­at­ed after spend­ing more than 10 years on death row, and not­ed, ​“All of them might have been exe­cut­ed if the legislation…