Publications & Testimony

Gussie Vann of Tennessee has been added to the list of those exon­er­at­ed from death row fol­low­ing the dis­missal of all charges against him in September 2011. Vann becomes the 139^th for­mer death row inmate exon­er­at­ed since 1973. Vann was orig­i­nal­ly con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in 1994 for a sex­u­al assault and mur­der of his own daugh­ter, Necia Vann, in 1992. However, in 2008 fol­low­ing state post-con­vic­tion review, Circuit Court Senior Judge Donald P. Harris…

On November 28 the North Carolina Senate vot­ed to repeal the state’s Racial Justice Act, which allowed death row inmates to use sta­tis­ti­cal evi­dence of racial bias to chal­lenge their sen­tences. The House had ear­li­er approved the repeal mea­sure. The Act was passed in 2009, and the first cas­es brought under the law are just now being con­sid­ered in state court. There were con­sid­er­able shifts in the state’s leg­is­la­ture in the wake of the 2010 elec­tions, leading…

The Orlando Sentinel in Florida recent­ly called on the state to change the unusu­al way in which it arrives at death sen­tences, rec­om­mend­ing instead unan­i­mous jury deci­sions for a death sen­tence, the pre­vail­ing prac­tice in the vast major­i­ty of states. In June, a fed­er­al judge declared Florida’s death penal­ty uncon­sti­tu­tion­al because it only requires a sim­ple major­i­ty to decide whether aggra­vat­ing fac­tors exist and to rec­om­mend a death sen­tence to the…

In a state­ment released on Nov. 22, Governor John Kitzhaber of Oregon announced a halt to all exe­cu­tions in the state. ​“I am con­vinced we can find a bet­ter solu­tion that keeps soci­ety safe, sup­ports the vic­tims of crime and their fam­i­lies and reflects Oregon val­ues,” he wrote. ​“I refuse to be a part of this com­pro­mised and inequitable sys­tem any longer; and I will not allow fur­ther exe­cu­tions while I am Governor.” His action halts the upcom­ing exe­cu­tion of…

A clas­sic book about the death penal­ty has recent­ly been re-pub­lished and is now avail­able in paper­back and elec­tron­ic form. Cruel and Unusual: The Supreme Court and Capital Punishment was writ­ten by Michael Meltsner, cur­rent­ly a pro­fes­sor at Northeastern University School of Law, and one of the key archi­tects at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund behind the chal­lenge that led to Furman v. Georgia in 1972. This Supreme Court deci­sion result­ed in…

Leaders from North Carolina’s civ­il rights groups, such as the NAACP, and from the defense bar have re-affirmed the need for the state’s Racial Justice Act, which was passed in 2009. The Act allows death row inmates to chal­lenge their death sen­tences using data from sta­tis­ti­cal stud­ies of racial bias with­in the state. The North Carolina Conference of District Attorneys is attempt­ing to have the law repealed because they say…

The Death Penalty Information Center is pleased to announce that our List of Those Exonerated from Death Row (1973-Present) is now avail­able in a search­able, data­base for­mat through our new Innocence Database. This resource allows users to search through the list of those freed from death row after their con­vic­tions were dis­missed by name, year of exon­er­a­tion, state from which they were released, the inmate’s race, and…

DPIC is pleased to announce the com­ple­tion of our State Information Pages for all 50 states and the District of Columbia. These state pro­files pro­vide his­tor­i­cal and cur­rent infor­ma­tion on the death penal­ty for each state, includ­ing famous cas­es, past leg­isla­tive actions, and links to key orga­ni­za­tions and state offi­cials. For fre­quent­ly updat­ed infor­ma­tion, such as exe­cu­tion totals, the size of death row, or the num­ber of exon­er­a­tions, see our State-by-State…

A recent study by David McCord, Professor of Law at Drake University Law School, titled What’s Messing with Texas Death Sentences?, found five sig­nif­i­cant caus­es for the recent decline in death sen­tences in Texas. McCord sought to explain a 65% drop in Texas death sen­tences from their peak five-year peri­od of 1992 – 1996 (when there was an annu­al aver­age of 40 death sen­tences) to the recent five-year peri­od of 2005 – 2009 (when only 14…