Publications & Testimony

Two bills under con­sid­er­a­tion in Texas aim to address issues in the state’s death penal­ty. House Bill 2458 would allow defen­dants to appeal their death sen­tences if they can prove that race was a sig­nif­i­cant fac­tor in the deci­sion to seek or impose the death penal­ty. Statistical evi­dence of bias can be used to sup­port such a claim. Similar bills, referred to as the Racial Justice Act, have been con­sid­ered in oth­er states. Testimony in favor…

On April 11, a jury in Puerto Rico reject­ed a death sen­tence for a defen­dant con­vict­ed of mur­der­ing an under­cov­er police­man. Instead, Lashaun Casey will be sen­tenced life in prison with­out parole. The defen­dant was eli­gi­ble for the death penal­ty because the case was tried under fed­er­al law rather than the law of Puerto Rico, which abol­ished the death penal­ty under the con­sti­tu­tion it enact­ed in 1952. The Commonwealth has not car­ried out an execution…

George F. Will, con­ser­v­a­tive com­men­ta­tor of the Washington Post, recent­ly drew a les­son about the death penal­ty from the doc­u­men­tary The Central Park Five, which airs on PBS on Tuesday, April 16. Will wrote, “[T]his recount­ing of a mul­ti­fac­eted but, for­tu­nate­ly, not fatal fail­ure of the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem but­tress­es the con­ser­v­a­tive case against the death penal­ty: Its final­i­ty leaves no…

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…

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…

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…

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,…

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,…

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…

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…