Publications & Testimony

Prison officials in Texas are reviewing policies currently requiring all death row inmates to be isolated one to a cell for 23 hours a day. Executions in Texas are carried out in Huntsville, and the local chapter of the correctional officers’ union supports changing death-row practices. Chapter president Lance Lowry said, “The correctional officers and taxpayers would benefit from an easing of the current policies. Most death row offenders could be housed two to a cell. Some of them could be…

On January 30 U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced the government would seek the death penalty in the federal prosecution of accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. DPIC has a number of resources about the federal death penalty, including a list of federal death row inmates with descriptions of their cases, information about crimes eligible for the federal death penalty, a breakdown of outcomes in federal capital cases, and studies related to such issues as costs and racial…

DPIC recently added a new webpage concerning death sentences in 2013. This resource includes the name, race, and county of sentencing for each of the 80 defendants sentenced to death last year, as well as the names of the leading states and counties. The number of new death sentences handed down was equal to the second lowest number since 1976. By race, 40% of those sentenced to death were white, 39% were black, 19% were Latino, and 2.5% were of other races. California led the country with 24…

The parents of a slain corrections officer in Colorado have asked to testify in opposition to a death sentence for their son’s alleged killer, but prosecutors have challenged their right to intervene. Eric Autobee’s (pictured) parents say that their son “would not have wanted someone killed in his name.” Prosecutors maintain Colorado law only allows victim impact statements to discuss the harm that resulted from the crime. The Autobees, in a court filing quoting Colorado law, argue that a…

Just one week before the scheduled execution of Christopher Sepulvado, Louisiana announced it has been unable to find pentobarbital for its lethal injections and instead may apply a new procedure used only once before in the U.S. If the state cannot obtain pentobarbital, it will employ the two-drug procedure used by Ohio on January16 to execute Dennis McGuire, an execution that resulted in gasping sounds and movements by the inmate over an extended period of time. That procedure involved…

Attorneys for a Missouri inmate facing imminent execution have asserted that the Department of Corrections has violated state and federal laws in acquiring its lethal injection drugs. Herbert Smulls is scheduled for execution on January 29, but a challenge has been filed in federal court alleging that the state’s pentobarbital was obtained from a compounding pharmacy in Oklahoma, which is unlicensed in Missouri. The suit also stated the drug has not been stored properly. A correctional…

New Hampshire, which is considering a bill to repeal the death penalty, only has one inmate on death row — Michael Addison, who was convicted of killing a police officer. Now that officer’s former partner, John Breckenridge (pictured), has had a change of heart about the death penalty and is calling for an end to capital punishment. Initially, Breckenridge supported a death sentence for Addison, and even spoke in favor of the death penalty before the state’s death penalty commission. However, he…

The Death Penalty Information Center’s website has been selected for inclusion in the archives of the U.S. Library of Congress. DPIC’s materials will be part of the Library’s historic collection of Internet resources on public policy topics, which will be made available to researchers at Library of Congress facilities, and may also be available on the Library’s public access website at a later date. The Library’s Web Archiving Team said, “Our web archives are important because they contribute…

Bernice King, the youngest daughter of Martin Luther King, Jr., encouraged New Hampshire to repeal the death penalty, saying that even though she lost her father and grandmother to murder, “I can’t accept the judgment that killers need to be killed, a practice that merely perpetuates the cycle of violence.” She called the death penalty “unworthy of a civilized society,” and warned that “retribution cannot light the way to the genuine healing that we need in the wake of heinous acts of…

A new poll by the Barna Group found that only 40% of practicing Christians supported the death penalty, and support was even lower among younger Christians. According to the poll released on January 17, only 23% of practicing Christian “millennials” (i.e., those born between 1980 and 2000) agreed with the statement: “The government should have the option to execute the worst criminals.” Without regard to their regular practice of their faith, only 42% of Christian baby boomers (born between…