Publications & Testimony

In Pennsylvania–a state that has recent­ly dealt with high-pro­file cas­es of child sex­u­al abuse – one vic­tim of such attacks is now fac­ing exe­cu­tion. On September 6, more than two dozen child advo­cates joined for­mer jurors, the victim’s wid­ow, as well as for­mer pros­e­cu­tors and judges in urg­ing Governor Tom Corbett and the Board of Pardons to grant clemen­cy to death row inmate Terrance Williams (pic­tured). Williams suf­fered years of physical and…

The Death Penalty Information Center’s High School Curriculum on the Death Penalty is now avail­able for stu­dents and teach­ers as a free elec­tron­ic text­book for use on the Apple iPad. This bal­anced and dynam­ic resource uses an issue of pub­lic con­cern to teach civic respon­si­bil­i­ty, research, and crit­i­cal think­ing. The e‑textbook con­tains all the fea­tures of DPIC’s award-win­ning online cur­ricu­lum, includ­ing sum­maries of argu­ments for and against…

Although Connecticut abol­ished the death penal­ty for future offens­es in 2012, eleven inmates remained on death row. Now an unusu­al tri­al will soon begin chal­leng­ing the death sen­tences of sev­en of those inmates, not because of the leg­is­la­ture’s repeal action, but because of evi­dence of racial and geo­graph­i­cal bias­es in decid­ing those sen­tences. The inmates will prin­ci­pal­ly rely on a study by Stanford University pro­fes­sor John Donohue, who reviewed near­ly 4,700 mur­ders in the…

New Mexico abol­ished the death penal­ty for future offens­es in 2009. However, two peo­ple still face exe­cu­tion, includ­ing Timothy Allen (pic­tured), who has been on death row for near­ly 17 years. His super­fi­cial tri­al and woe­ful­ly inad­e­quate rep­re­sen­ta­tion reveal sys­temic flaws in the state’s appli­ca­tion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. The lead attor­ney in Allen’s tri­al had nev­er tried a death penal­ty case before, and failed to research Allen’s psy­chi­atric his­to­ry. Later investigation…

As many schools are begin­ning their new terms, the Death Penalty Information Center is pleased to remind you of our two edu­ca­tion­al cur­ric­u­la on the death penal­ty. Our col­lege-lev­el cur­ricu­lum, Capital Punishment in Context, con­tains detailed case stud­ies of four indi­vid­u­als who were sen­tenced to death in the U.S. The cur­ricu­lum pro­vides a com­plete nar­ra­tive of each case, includ­ing orig­i­nal resources such as homi­cide reports, affi­davits, and transcripts of…

Kansas rein­stat­ed the death penal­ty in 1994, but no exe­cu­tions have been car­ried out since 1965. On aver­age, the state sen­tences less than one per­son to death per year. Four of those death sen­tences have been over­turned in the ear­ly round of appeals, includ­ing that of Scott Cheever, whose cap­i­tal con­vic­tion was unan­i­mous­ly reversed by the Kansas Supreme Court on August 24. No death sen­tence that has reached the state’s high­est court has been upheld. During Cheever’s 2007…

A new book by Professor Harry M. Ward of the University of Richmond exam­ines the death penal­ty in Virginia at a time when exe­cu­tions were car­ried out for all to see. In Public Executions in Richmond, Virginia: A History, 1782 – 1907, Ward pro­vides a his­to­ry of the hang­ings and, dur­ing the Civil War, fir­ing-squad exe­cu­tions in Virginia’s cap­i­tal city. Thousands of wit­ness­es attend­ed the exe­cu­tions, which were seen as a form of enter­tain­ment. Public exe­cu­tions ended with…

The U.S. Military has not car­ried out an exe­cu­tion of a ser­vice mem­ber for 50 years. Of the 11 mil­i­tary death sen­tences that have com­plet­ed direct appeal, 9 (82%) have been reversed. On August 22, the Navy-Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeals over­turned the death sen­tence of for­mer Lance Corporal Kenneth G. Parker, the only Marine on the mil­i­tary’s death row. The court also over­turned one of Parker’s two mur­der con­vic­tions after find­ing that his guilt was…

The Michigan State Law Review recent­ly ded­i­cat­ed a spe­cial issue to the late Professor David C. Baldus (pic­tured), well known for his ground­break­ing research on racial bias in the death penal­ty. Distinguished authors con­tributed a vari­ety of arti­cles on issues relat­ed to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, includ­ing: ​“Capital Punishment and the Right to Life” by the late Hugo Adam Bedau and a spe­cial trib­ute to Prof. Baldus by Barbara O’Brien and Catherine Grosso. Other authors…