Publications & Testimony

Today, in lieu of our dai­ly ​“What’s New,” we are mak­ing a spe­cial request. Please take a moment to con­sid­er the impor­tance of DPIC’s work on the death penal­ty and make a dona­tion to sup­port these efforts. Pulitzer-Prize win­ning jour­nal­ist Raymond Bonner called DPIC ​“the best sin­gle source of facts, fig­ures, and oth­er infor­ma­tion about cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in America.” DPIC reach­es almost 3 mil­lion vis­i­tors per year through its web­site and mil­lions more through our work with the…

A new report from the Death Penalty Project, titled The Death Penalty in Japan, pro­vides an assess­ment of that country’s oblig­a­tions under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), a treaty which both Japan and the U.S. have rat­i­fied. While retain­ing the death penal­ty is not itself a breach of the treaty, the report states Japan is under an oblig­a­tion to devel­op domes­tic laws and prac­tices that pro­gres­sive­ly restrict the use of the death…

A new book by Kathleen Cairns explores the intrigu­ing sto­ry of Barbara Graham, who was exe­cut­ed for mur­der in California in 1955, and whose case became a touch­stone in the ongo­ing debate over cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. In Proof of Guilt: Barbara Graham and the Politics of Executing Women in America, Cairns exam­ines how dif­fer­ent nar­ra­tives por­trayed Graham, with pros­e­cu­tors describ­ing her as mys­te­ri­ous and seduc­tive, while some of the media emphasized…

According to a new report from Amnesty International, the inter­na­tion­al trend away from the death penal­ty gen­er­al­ly con­tin­ued in 2012. The num­ber of coun­tries in which death sen­tences were imposed fell from 63 to 58. The num­ber of coun­tries that have com­plete­ly abol­ished the death penal­ty stood at 97. Ten years ago, this fig­ure stood at 80. In total, 140 coun­tries world­wide have end­ed the death penal­ty in law or in prac­tice. However, 3 coun­tries – India, Pakistan, and the…

A recent arti­cle by Professor Aliza Kaplan (pic­tured) of the Lewis & Clark Law School exam­ines Oregon​’s death penal­ty in light of the action take by the state’s gov­er­nor, John Kitzhaber, to halt all exe­cu­tions. The arti­cle explores the his­to­ry of Oregon’s death penal­ty, the risk of wrong­ful con­vic­tions, and the costs asso­ci­at­ed with main­tain­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Kaplan found that exe­cu­tions are car­ried out very rarely, and, since 1976 only in instances…

In cas­es with mul­ti­ple defen­dants, the ​“worst” offend­er does not always receive the worst pun­ish­ment. For exam­ple, in Arizona, Patrick Bearup (pic­tured) was the only one among four co-defen­dants to receive the death penal­ty, even though he was not direct­ly involved in killing the vic­tim. The oth­er three defen­dants, one of whom insti­gat­ed the offense, anoth­er of whom beat the vic­tim with a base­ball bat, and a third who shot the vic­tim, were able to secure plea bargains,…

On April 4, the Alabama House of Representatives vot­ed 103 – 0 in favor of a bill to posthu­mous­ly par­don the ​“Scottsboro Boys,” nine black teenagers who were wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed of the rape of two white women in 1931. The bill passed the Senate by a vote of 29 – 0, and Gov. Robert Bentley has indi­cat­ed he will sign it. All but one of the group were sen­tenced to death by all-white juries with vir­tu­al­ly no legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion. The mil­i­tary had to pro­tect them…

Criminal Justice Professor James Acker of the University at Albany recent­ly dis­cussed the deci­sion by the District Attorney to seek the death penal­ty against James Holmes, the man accused of killing 12 peo­ple and wound­ing many oth­ers at a movie the­ater in Aurora, Colorado. In addi­tion to con­cerns about the defen­dan­t’s pos­si­ble men­tal ill­ness, Acker raised a num­ber of ques­tions about this course of action: ​“Will the vic­tims and their fam­i­lies some­how be made whole? Would the…

Since the 1990s, almost every death penal­ty state has expe­ri­enced a dra­mat­ic decline in its annu­al num­ber of death sen­tences. DPIC has pre­pared a series of graphs illus­trat­ing this trend in each state: State Death Sentences by Year. This page con­tains graphs show­ing the annu­al num­ber of new sen­tences in each state between 1994 and 2012. These same graphs can be found indi­vid­u­al­ly on each state’s State Information page. Nationally, there was a 75%…

A new inter­na­tion­al man­u­al cov­er­ing psy­chi­atric and psy­cho­log­i­cal issues aris­ing in cap­i­tal cas­es has been pre­pared by a team of foren­sic psy­chi­a­trists for use by attor­neys, judges, and men­tal health offi­cials. The Handbook of Forensic Psychiatric Practice in Capital Cases sets out mod­el struc­tures for psy­chi­atric assess­ment and report writ­ing for every stage of a death penal­ty case, from pre-tri­al to exe­cu­tion. It also dis­cuss­es eth­i­cal issues, par­tic­u­lar­ly with regard to an…