Publications & Testimony

Damien Echols was freed from death row and two code­fen­dants were freed from prison in Arkansas on August 19 after almost two decades of main­tain­ing their inno­cence for the mur­der of three chil­dren in 1993. Echols, along with Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley, were grant­ed an oppor­tu­ni­ty to enter a spe­cial plea in which they con­tin­ued to assert their inno­cence but acknowl­edged that the state could like­ly con­vict them again in a retri­al. DNA evi­dence that emerged after their…

The Innocence Project has launched a new mul­ti­me­dia resource illus­trat­ing the main caus­es of wrong­ful con­vic­tions and the reforms nec­es­sary to pre­vent such mis­takes. This inter­ac­tive tool, ​“Getting it Right,” fea­tures videos, case stud­ies and research on such top­ics as false con­fes­sions, eye­wit­ness iden­ti­fi­ca­tion, infor­mant tes­ti­mo­ny, and fail­ures by the defense and pros­e­cu­tion. Three death penal­ty cas­es are high­light­ed: Ron Williamson,…

A new study by Professor Franklin Zimring of the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law pro­vides an in-depth analy­sis of the fac­tors that influ­enced the dra­mat­ic twen­ty-year decline of street crime in New York City. According to the study, which was recent­ly dis­cussed in Scientific American, the rate of com­mon crimes such as homi­cide, rob­bery and bur­glary dropped by more than 80 per­cent in New York City. By 2009, the homi­cide rate was…

In Washington, King County has spent $656,564 to pros­e­cute three cap­i­tal defen­dants in two cas­es and over $4.3 mil­lion to defend the accused. The tri­als have yet to begin, but mon­ey has been need­ed for expert wit­ness­es, inves­ti­ga­tors, and foren­sic analy­sis. Prosecution costs do not include work done by police offi­cers and crime-lab ana­lysts. The coun­ty has strug­gled with con­straints on its crim­i­nal jus­tice bud­get and has elim­i­nat­ed the jobs of 36 pros­e­cu­tors since 2008. A…

DPIC is pleased to announce the addi­tion of five more states to one of our lat­est resources, the State Information Pages. Adding to the orig­i­nal 15 state pages made avail­able ear­li­er, pages for Alaska, Kansas, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Wisconsin may now be accessed as well. These pages pro­vide his­tor­i­cal and cur­rent infor­ma­tion on the death penal­ty for each state (regard­less of…

Lawyers for Jerry Terrell Jackson, who is cur­rent­ly fac­ing exe­cu­tion in Virginia on August 18, recent­ly peti­tioned the U.S. Supreme Court to spare Jackson’s life, argu­ing that the jury in his 2003 tri­al did not receive suf­fi­cient evi­dence of the abuse he suf­fered as a child because his tri­al lawyers were inad­e­quate. Jackson’s cur­rent lawyers told the Court that this evi­dence could have con­vinced some jurors not to impose a death sentence:…

Seeking the death penal­ty in Indiana is very expen­sive, even though most cas­es in which the death penal­ty is sought do not end in an exe­cu­tion. According to the Indiana Public Defender Council, only 16% per­cent of death penal­ty cas­es in the state filed between 1990 and 2009 (30 out of 188) end­ed with a death sen­tence, and even few­er result­ed in an exe­cu­tion. In Vanderburgh County, where tax­pay­ers have spent $800,000 in the last two decades defend­ing cap­i­tal cas­es, only one of…

The lat­est edi­tion of the Death Penalty Information Center’s series of pod­casts, DPIC on the Issues, is now avail­able. This pod­cast address­es ques­tions about the U.S. Supreme Court’s role in over­see­ing the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the death penal­ty. The pod­cast dis­cuss­es the kinds of cas­es the Court takes on review and briefly describes a few key Supreme Court deci­sions on the death penal­ty, includ­ing Furman v. Georgia and Gregg v. Georgia. The Supreme Court’s…