Publications & Testimony

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 The North Carolina Conference of District Attorneys is attempt­ing to have the law repealed because they say…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…

Bob Van Steenburg (pic­tured), served for 27 years in the mil­i­tary and retired as a United States Army Colonel in 1991. He cur­rent­ly serves as the President of the Board of Directors of the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. On Veterans Day, he reflect­ed on how his oppo­si­tion to the death penal­ty grew from his com­mit­ments as a sol­dier. He wrote, ​“A sol­dier stands for more than just him or her­self. A sol­dier stands for the nation and its cit­i­zens. A…

The Texas Forensic Science Commission recent­ly closed its inquiry into the case of Cameron Todd Willingham (pic­tured), who was exe­cut­ed in Texas in 2004. The Commission was told by the Texas Attorney General that it did not have juris­dic­tion to rule on the Willingham case. Hence, in its final report on October 28 on the mat­ter, it declined to issue any find­ing regard­ing alle­ga­tions of neg­li­gence or mis­con­duct by the City of Corsicana or the Texas State Fire…

A new arti­cle to be pub­lished in the American Criminal Law Review explores the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the death penal­ty for those con­vict­ed of felony mur­der, i.e., those who par­tic­i­pat­ed in a seri­ous crime in which a death occurred, but were not direct­ly respon­si­ble for the death. The arti­cle is by Joseph Trigilio and Tracy Casadio, both Deputy Federal Public Defenders in California and is titled ​“Executing Those Who Do Not Kill.” The authors argue that the U.S.

In a new doc­u­men­tary, titled Into the Abyss: A Tale of Life, A Tale of Death, renowned doc­u­men­tar­i­an Werner Herzog (pic­tured) exam­ines the case of a triple homi­cide in Conroe, Texas, explor­ing why peo­ple kill and why states car­ry out exe­cu­tions. The film fea­tures inti­mate con­ver­sa­tions with many of those involved in the case, includ­ing 28-year-old death row inmate Michael Perry, who was exe­cut­ed short­ly after his inter­view with…

On November 7, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to grant review to Texas inmate Duane Buck. Buck sought a new sen­tenc­ing tri­al because of tes­ti­mo­ny sug­gest­ing he posed a greater dan­ger to soci­ety because he is black. During his tri­al, psy­chol­o­gist Dr. Walter Quijano told the court that Buck’s race increased the like­li­hood of his future dan­ger­ous­ness. Three of the Justices on the Court (Alito, Scalia and Breyer), which had grant­ed Buck a stay…