Publications & Testimony

For in-depth analy­sis, view DPIC’s Report: The 2% Death Penalty: How a Minority of Counties Produce Most Death Cases at Enormous Costs to…

DPIC…

Professor Victor L. Streib of the Ohio Northern University College of Law ana­lyzed the char­ac­ter­is­tics of the women on death row as of December 2012. He found that the ages of the women then on death row ranged from age 28 to 79 years old. They had been on death row from a few months to more…

Plea Bargain in Arizona Case: Jared Loughner pled guilty in fed­er­al court on August 7 to the shoot­ings in 2011 that left 6 peo­ple dead and 13 wound­ed, includ­ing Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (pic­tured). He will be sen­tenced to life with­out parole. Former Rep. Giffords and her hus­band Mark Kelly said they con­curred with the plea agree­ment. Mr. Kelly said,​“Avoiding a tri­al will allow us — and we hope the whole Southern Arizona com­mu­ni­ty to con­tin­ue with our…

Source:​“DEATH PENALTY FOR FEMALE OFFENDERS, JANUARY 1, 1973, THROUGH DECEMBER 31, 2012” by…

The lat­est edi­tion of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund​’s Death Row USA showed a decrease of 43 inmates under sen­tence of death from January 1 to October 1, 2012. Over the last decade, the total pop­u­la­tion of state and fed­er­al death rows has decreased sig­nif­i­cant­ly, from 3,703 inmates in 2000 to 3,146 inmates as of October 2012. California con­tin­ues to have the largest death row pop­u­la­tion (724), fol­lowed by Florida (411), Texas (304),…

On December 26, U.S. District Court Judge Raymond Jackson ordered Virginia to uncon­di­tion­al­ly free death row inmate Justin Wolfe with­in 10 days and barred the state from using its key wit­ness in any retri­al of Wolfe. Wolfe was con­vict­ed of con­spir­a­cy in the mur­der of Daniel Petrole, a fel­low drug deal­er in north­ern Virginia. His con­vic­tion was based pri­mar­i­ly on the tes­ti­mo­ny of the actu­al shoot­er, Owen Barber, who claimed that Wolfe…

On December 21, Seth Penalver was acquit­ted of all charges and will be freed from Florida​’s death row, 13 years after being sen­tenced to death. He was orig­i­nal­ly charged with a triple mur­der and armed rob­bery that occurred in Broward County in 1994. His first tri­al end­ed with a dead­locked jury. At his sec­ond tri­al in 1999, he was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death. In 2006, the Florida Supreme Court (Penalver v. Florida, No. SC00-1602,…

In a recent op-ed in the Houston Chronicle, for­mer Texas District Attorneys Grant Jones and Sam Millsap (pic­tured) encour­aged the state leg­is­la­ture to recon­sid­er the death penal­ty.​“Both of us have been involved in the exe­cu­tion of men who may well have been inno­cent,” they said, men­tion­ing three cas­es that​“raise seri­ous doubts about the wis­dom of con­tin­u­ing the death penal­ty.” Two of the cas­es, those of Carlos DeLuna and Ruben Cantu,…

The Chief Justice of California​’s Supreme Court, Tani Cantil-Sakauye, said recent­ly that she does not expect exe­cu­tions in California to resume for at least three years because of prob­lems with the lethal injec­tion process. California has already not car­ried out an exe­cu­tion in sev­en years. Justice Cantil-Sakauye said major struc­tur­al changes to the state’s death penal­ty are unlike­ly, and that a pro­pos­al by the for­mer Chief Justice to speed death penalty…