Publications & Testimony

Donald Cabana, the former warden of the Mississippi State Penitentiary who died recently, spent many years actively opposing the death penalty. Having supervised several executions, Cabana was particularly disturbed about one in which the inmate may have been innocent. He said, “[H]owever we do it, in the name of justice, in the name of law and order, in the name of retribution, you … do not have the right to ask me, or any prison official, to bloody my hands with an innocent person’s blood.”

Following the provisions of Florida’s recently passed “Timely Justice Act,” the clerk of the state’s Supreme Court has identified 132 inmates on death row who are “warrant ready,” based on their appeals. However, fewer than 20 of those inmates have begun the executive clemency process that must be completed before an execution can take place. Once the governor signals that the clemency process is over for an inmate, a death warrant must be signed in 30 days, but there is no mandatory schedule…

On October 10, the European Union commemorated World Day Against the Death Penalty, coinciding with events around the world challenging the use of capital punishment. Catherine Ashton, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, and Thorbjørn Jagland, Secretary General of the Council of Europe released a statement, noting, “Voices in favor of the death penalty within some parts of society, including in our continent, show that there is a continuous need to spell out why…

Wyoming’s Casper Star-Tribune recently pointed out why many families of murder victims favor life-without-parole sentences over the death penalty . “[I]t may be a surprise that many families of murder victims prefer the life without parole sentence, simply because it puts the killer away forever without the decades-long court appeals that can accompany a death sentence,” the paper wrote. The editorial noted that there is only one person on the state’s death row, and he is there for a crime…

Former Virginia attorneys general Mark L. Earley Sr. (pictured) and Anthony F. Troy recently called for changes to the state’s death penalty based on a September report from the American Bar Association. Writing in the Washington Post, the past law enforcement leaders called for changes to the restrictive laws governing the sharing of evidence prior to trials, amendments to jury instructions so that jurors in death cases could better understand their responsibilities, and the easing of…

On the opening day of the U.S. Supreme Court’s new term, the Justices announced they would not review the case of Warren Hill, a death row inmate in Georgia with multiple findings of intellectual disability. Hill petitioned the Court after three mental health experts, who initially said he was not mentally disabled, changed their assessment. The execution of inmates with mental retardation was ruled unconstitutional in 2002, but Georgia has the strictest standard in the nation for proving this…

On October 4, Ohio announced it will be obtaining its execution drug, pentobarbital, from a compounding pharmacy if it is not available from the manufacturer. Texas made a similar announcement a few days earler. In the past, some compounding pharmacies have been implicated in providing contaminated drugs with fatal side effects. These local companies are not regulated by the Food and Drug Administration. Florida announced it will be using a new drug, midazolam, in its October 15 execution. The…

Since DPIC released its new report, The 2% Death Penalty, on October 2, both national and international media have been reporting on its findings. The Washington Post noted, “Two percent of the counties in the country were responsible for [most] 685 of 1,320 executions from 1976, when the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty, to 2012.” The Los Angeles Times, quoted DPIC’s Executive Director, “‘The death penalty is not as American or as widespread as people might assume. It is clustered in…

On October 2 the Death Penalty Information Center released a new report, The 2% Death Penalty: How a Minority of Counties Produce Most Death Cases at Enormous Costs to All. The report shows that, contrary to the assumption that the death penalty is widely used in the U.S., only a few jurisdictions employ capital punishment extensively. Only 2% of the counties in the U.S. have been responsible for the majority of cases leading to executions since 1976. Likewise, only 2% of the counties are…

An analysis of the death penalty in Utah shows how rarely it has been used in recent years. Prosecutors have sought it in only 7 cases in the last 5 years, and none has resulted in a death sentence. Utah has had only 1 execution in the past 13 years. Experts have offered several reasons for the declining use: the alternative sentence of life without parole is now avaialble; the appeal of a death sentence is costly and slow; and many victims’ families wish to see a more timely end to the…