Publications & Testimony

On August 4 in Virginia, Norfolk Circuit Court Judge Charles Poston accept­ed the state’s request to dis­miss charges against Derek Tice, one of four men known col­lec­tive­ly as the Norfolk Four (pic­tured; Tice is at the low­er left), who were orig­i­nal­ly con­vict­ed of a rape and mur­der fol­low­ing a sus­pect series of con­fes­sions. All four were sen­tenced to prison. Appeals by attor­neys for the Norfolk Four alleged that Robert Glenn Ford, the police…

The Death Penalty Information Center has pre­pared a sum­ma­ry of a com­pre­hen­sive cost study of California​’s death penal­ty sys­tem recent­ly pub­lished by fed­er­al Judge Arthur L. Alarcon and Loyola Law School Professor Paula M. Mitchell. The orig­i­nal study is enti­tled Executing the Will of the Voters?: A Roadmap to Mend or End the California Legislature’s Multi-Billion Dollar Death Penalty Debacle, and it was pub­lished in…

A report released by Amnesty International in July looks at recent devel­op­ments in the lethal injec­tion con­tro­ver­sy in the U.S. and pro­vides an overview of the death penal­ty since it was rein­stat­ed in 1976 in Gregg v. Georgia. Amnesty’s report, enti­tled ​“An Embarrassment of Hitches: Reflections on the Death Penalty, 35 Years After Gregg v. Georgia, As States Scramble for Lethal Injection Drugs,” begins with a dis­cus­sion of a law­suit filed by…

On July 29, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott ruled that the state’s Forensic Science Commission (FSC) does not have author­i­ty to review evi­dence regard­ing the pos­si­ble inno­cence of Cameron Todd Willingham (pic­tured), who was exe­cut­ed in 2004. Willingham was con­vict­ed of set­ting the fire that killed his three chil­dren, but inves­tig­tions by promi­nent foren­sic sci­en­tists have dis­cred­it­ed the evi­dence of arson pre­sent­ed at tri­al. Abbott said evi­dence that was…

On July 28, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals stayed the sched­uled August 18 exe­cu­tion of Larry Swearingen (pic­tured) in order to con­sid­er new evi­dence that might prove his inno­cence. Swearingen was con­vict­ed of the 1998 mur­der of Melissa Trotter, whose body was found in the Sam Houston National Forest. Trotter was last seen alive with Swearingen. Forensic sci­en­tists who exam­ined the evi­dence from Trotter’s body have said that she could not have been in the…

The Death Penalty Information Center is pleased to offer a new and more com­pre­hen­sive ver­sion of our Execution Database. The new data­base includes infor­ma­tion on the coun­ty where the crime was com­mit­ted and on the gen­der of vic­tim, in addi­tion to the infor­ma­tion avail­able in our pre­vi­ous data­base. The data­base includes such cat­e­gories as Race of Defendant and Victim, Foreign Nationals, Method of Execution, and Age at…

O.H. Eaton Jr. (pic­tured), who served as a judge for many years in Florida, recent­ly wrote an op-ed in the Birmingham News call­ing for an end to Alabama​’s law that allows judges to over­ride juries’ sen­tenc­ing rec­om­men­da­tions in death penal­ty cas­es. Eaton, who presided over numer­ous cap­i­tal cas­es dur­ing his 24 years on the bench, said that his expe­ri­ence con­vinced him that the prac­tive of judi­cial over­ride is unfair. Citing a report…

On July 25, the Florida Supreme Court (4 – 3) stayed the August 2 exe­cu­tion of Manuel Valle to allow a low­er court to con­sid­er a chal­lenge to a new lethal injec­tion drug. Last month, Florida sub­sti­tut­ed pen­to­bar­bi­tal for sodi­um thiopen­tal as the first drug in its three-drug pro­to­col for exe­cu­tions. Florida and many oth­er states were forced to seek alter­na­tives to sodi­um thiopen­tal when the drug’s sole U.S. man­u­fac­tur­er decid­ed to stop its pro­duc­tion. Valle’s…