Publications & Testimony

Donald Heller (pic­tured), who wrote California​’s death penal­ty law, and Ron Briggs, who led the cam­paign to rein­state the law in 1978, are now advo­cat­ing for replac­ing the death penal­ty with a sen­tence of life with­out parole. Both now say that the law did not have the result they intend­ed. ​“At the time, we were of the impres­sion that it would do swift jus­tice, that it would get the crim­i­nals and mur­der­ers through the sys­tem quick­ly and apply…

A new study pub­lished on the Social Science Resource Network by a group of pro­fes­sors at Cornell University found a high inci­dence of racial dis­par­i­ties in the oper­a­tion of Delaware​’s death penal­ty. The study, pub­lished in con­junc­tion with a sym­po­sium hon­or­ing the late David Baldus (pic­tured), exam­ined the state’s death penal­ty since 1972 and found: — Of 49 defen­dants sen­tenced to death since 1972, 53% were black, 39% were white, and 8% were Hispanic or Native American. In…

On April 5, the state sen­ate in Connecticut approved (20 – 16) a bill to repeal the death penal­ty and replace it with a sen­tence of life with­out a parole. The bill is prospec­tive and would not affect the 11 inmates cur­rent­ly on death row. The sen­ate passed an amend­ment to the orig­i­nal repeal bill requir­ing future defen­dants con­vict­ed of mur­der with spe­cial cir­cum­stances to be sub­ject to the same con­fine­ment con­di­tions as cur­rent death row inmates. Sen. Gayle Slossberg,…

The Connecticut Senate is expect­ed to vote as ear­ly as Wednesday (April 4) on a bill to replace the death penal­ty with a sen­tence of life with­out parole. The bill, which would only affect future sen­tenc­ing, passed the Judiciary Committee on March 21 and needs at least 18 votes to pass in the Senate. If it pass­es the Senate, it is con­sid­ered like­ly to pass the House, and Governor Dannel Malloy has pledged to sign the bill into law. A sim­i­lar bill passed the General Assembly in…

The Death Penalty Information Center is pleased to present its first pod­cast in Spanish. This pod­cast is part of our series, DPIC On The Issues, and is now avail­able for lis­ten­ing and down­load­ing. Our pod­cast in Spanish is the 18^th in the series of pod­casts, and it dis­cuss­es gen­er­al death penal­ty top­ics, with a focus on pub­lic opin­ion among Hispanics, the pop­u­la­tion of minori­ties on death row, and the use of the death penal­ty in Spanish-speaking countries.

Thirty-four high-pro­file for­mer judges and law enforce­ment offi­cials recent­ly filed an ami­cus brief argu­ing against Virginia​’s efforts to rein­state the con­vic­tion of Justin Wolfe (pic­tured). Wolfe’s attor­neys main­tain he was wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in a 2002 mur­der-for-hire case because of false tes­ti­mo­ny from the actu­al shoot­er, Owen Barber. In 2005, Barber admit­ted to lying under oath, say­ing, ​“The pros­e­cu­tion and my own defense attorney…

A new book, ​“The Inferno: A Southern Morality Tale,” by Joseph Ingle, chron­i­cles the com­pelling sto­ry of Philip Workman, who was exe­cut­ed in Tennessee in 2007. The author, a min­is­ter of the United Church of Christ who has spent decades work­ing with those on death row, served as Mr. Workman’s pas­tor and tells the sto­ry from his own view­point, as well as those of oth­ers famil­iar with the case. Sister Helen…

On March 27, a fed­er­al District Court held that for­eign-man­u­fac­tured sodi­um thiopen­tal was improp­er­ly approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use in exe­cu­tions. Judge Richard Leon (pic­tured) of the District Court of the District of Columbia ordered any cor­rec­tion­al depart­ments in pos­ses­sion of the drug to return it to the FDA. The rul­ing grant­ed sum­ma­ry judg­ment in favor of a law­suit filed by death row inmates in Arizona, California, and…

On March 27, Amnesty International released its annu­al sur­vey on the use of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment world­wide, titled Death Sentences and Executions 2011. The report illus­trat­ed that the use of the death penal­ty has con­tin­ued to decline around the world. At the end of 2011, there were 140 coun­tries con­sid­ered abo­li­tion­ist in law or prac­tice, while only 20 coun­tries were known to have put pris­on­ers to death in 2011. The United States was the only country…