Publications & Testimony

The Death Penalty Information Center is pleased to offer a new resource page on death sentences in 2012. Seventy-eight (78) people were sentenced to death in 2012, the second lowest number of sentences since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. Of those sentenced, 3 were women; 49% were black; 40% were white. Four states (FL, CA, TX, and PA) were responsible for 65% of the death sentences, and only 9 counties produced over a third of the death sentences in the country. Information is…

Jeffrey Havard (pictured) is facing execution in Mississippi despite the fact that key evidence against him came from a medical examiner who has been harshly criticized by experts in his field. Havard was convicted of murdering his girlfriend’s 6‑month-old daughter, based primarily on the testimony of Steven Hayne, a state pathologist. Dr. Hayne testified he found symptoms of “shaken baby syndrome” and sexual abuse on the infant. Recent investigations into Hayne’s credentials indicate he had…

On January 8, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously rejected indefinite delays in the federal review of death penalty cases when inmates are mentally incompetent to assist their attorneys. Writing for the Court, Justice Clarence Thomas said such appeals are usually based on established facts, not requiring further input from the defendant. “Given the backward-looking, record-based nature of most federal habeas proceedings, counsel can generally provide effective representation to a habeas…

In his recent Sidebar column, Adam Liptak, Supreme Court reporter for the New York Times, discussed the plight that Alabama death row inmate Ronald Smith suffered at the hands of a drug-addicted lawyer and an unsympathetic court. In December, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit ruled that Smith could not challenge his conviction and sentence because his lawyer failed to properly file his post-conviction appeal. However, as Liptak explained, the court did not “place much weight on…

As legislative sessions begin across the country, legislators in several states have proposed bills to abolish or reform the death penalty in 2013. In Alabama, Sen. Hank Sanders will introduce bills to abolish the death penalty, or alternatively to institute a series of reforms. “I believe the death penalty is not only unproductive but counter-productive,” he said. Texas will also consider a number of death penalty reform bills, including restrictions on certain types of evidence, and the…

DPIC’s 2012 Year End Report received extensive media coverage in the U.S. and internationally. Coverage included pieces by the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Associated Press, Reuters, New York Times, CNN, and hundreds of other outlets. National broadcast outlets such as NPR, MSNBC, and CBS Radio also ran pieces. Many papers editorialized about the themes highlighted in the Report, including the continuing decline in the use of the death penalty around the country, the…

Following the themes of DPIC’s 2012 Year End Report, the lead editorial for Jan. 2 in the New York Times concluded that “capital punishment is cruel and unusual” as judged by the country’s “evolving standards” of decency and “should be abolished” by the Supreme Court. The Times’s editorial noted the fewer number of states carrying out executions, the lack of any meaningful rationale, the arbitrariness of its application, and the risk of executing the innocent as major problems with the current…

DPIC Summary Executing the Will of the Voters?: A roadmap to mend or end the California legislature’s multi-billion dollar death penalty debacle by Judge Arthur L. Alarcon & Paula M. Mitchell published in 44 Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review S41, Special Issue (2011) Read the entire article. “Since reinstating the death penalty in 1978, California taxpayers have spent roughly $4 billion to fund a dysfunctional death penalty system that has carried out no more than 13 executions.” UPDATE…