Publications & Testimony

In advance of a New Hampshire Senate vote expected on April 17, the Boston Globe published an editorial calling on their neighboring state’s legislators to support repeal of capital punishment. The editorial highlighted the bipartisan support for abolition in the New Hampshire House, and Gov. Maggie Hassan’s pledge to sign the repeal bill if it passes the Senate. Among their reasons for endorsing the measure, the Globe said, “Death-penalty prosecutions are expensive, verdicts often reflect…

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, users can find current information on our State-by-State…

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 suffering. However, inmates whose executions are rapidly…

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.), Tilmon Golphin, Quintel Augustine, and Christina…

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, including: ► Require higher standards for proving guilt if a death sentence is sought (such as DNA evidence) ► Bar the death penalty for those who suffer from “serious mental illness” ► Lessen the number of crimes eligible for the…

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 decisions, including the…

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 deluge of spurious claims has not materialized. Of the 1,307…

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: $72,530 for cases with the death penalty…

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 of one of his clients, Leo Edwards, whose…

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 Ohio’s Death Row.” Ohio had 4 death sentences in…