Publications & Testimony

Although the United States is con­sid­ered a death penal­ty coun­try, exe­cu­tions are rare or non-exis­­tent in most of the nation: the major­i­ty of states—31 out of 50—have either abol­ished the death penal­ty or have not car­ried out an exe­cu­tion in at least 10 years. An addi­tion­al 6 states have not had an exe­cu­tion in at least 5 years, for a total of 37 states with no exe­cu­tions in that time. Three additional jurisdictions…

In a recent arti­cle in the Peoria Journal Star, Jennifer Bishop Jenkins and Kathleen Bishop Becker, both of whom had fam­i­ly mem­bers mur­dered, called on Illinois​’s state leg­is­la­ture to end the death penal­ty as a bet­ter way of help­ing vic­tims. Becker and Jenkins wrote,​“When our fam­i­ly mem­bers were mur­dered, issues like crime pre­ven­tion, vic­tims’ rights, and the death penal­ty stopped being mere­ly hypo­thet­i­cal… it’s because we prioritize…

Statement from the FDA Regarding Oversight of Lethal Injection Drugs and Release of Foreign Shipments…

The infor­ma­tion and analy­sis in DPIC’s recent 2010 Year-End Report were report­ed in hun­dreds of media out­lets around the coun­try. Among the papers writ­ing edi­to­ri­als on the trends cit­ed in the report were the New York Times, the Washington Post, and Colorado’s Aurora Sentinel. The Times’ edi­to­r­i­al,​“Still Cruel, Less Usual,” not­ed,​“A…

Following the release of the report from the New Hampshire Commission to Study the Death Penalty, New Hampshire​’s Concord Monitor called for an end to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the state. The Commission con­clud­ed a year of pub­lic hear­ings and care­ful study and chose by a 12 – 10 vote to rec­om­mend nei­ther expand­ing nor abol­ish­ing the death penal­ty. However, the Monitor point­ed out that the evi­dence pre­sent­ed to the commission was…

On May 29, 2007, a jury in Charleston, West Virginia, rec­om­mend­ed death sen­tences for George Lecco and Valerie Friend for the mur­der of Carla Collins in order to pro­tect their drug ring. Prosecutors main­tained that Lecco arranged to have Collins killed and that Friend did the shoot­ing in 2005. Formal sen­tenc­ing was sched­uled for August 23. The judge is required to fol­low the jury’s rec­om­men­da­tion. These are the first fed­er­al death sen­tences in West Virginia since the…

Despite assis­tance from the coun­­ty-sup­­port­ed statewide Capital Crimes Defense Fund, local offi­cials in sev­er­al Idaho coun­ties are trou­bled by the eco­nom­ic bur­den of pros­e­cut­ing death penal­ty cas­es. They are also con­cerned about a recent fed­er­al appel­late court rul­ing that could over­turn all exist­ing state death sen­tences because Idaho’s sen­tenc­ing pro­ce­dures were deemed…

A bill that would repeal the death penal­ty in South Dakota was sched­uled for a hear­ing in the House State Affairs Committee on February 10. The bill, HB 1245, would man­date life impris­on­ment with­out parole for peo­ple con­vict­ed of Class A felonies. South Dakota has only exe­cut­ed one per­son in the last 50 years, and cur­rent­ly has 3 peo­ple on death row. The bill is spon­sored by Rep. Gerald Lange (D‑Madison), and strongly…

On Dec. 1, 2010, the New Hampshire Death Penalty Study Commission released its report to the gov­er­nor. The major­i­ty (12 – 10) report rec­om­mend­ed nei­ther the abo­li­tion nor the expan­sion of the death penal­ty. The report did find that there is an added cost for the death penal­ty as com­pared to a life with­out parole sen­tence:​“There is a sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­ence in the cost of prosecution and…

Gregory Wilson is sched­uled for exe­cu­tion in Kentucky on September 16, despite hav­ing been rep­re­sent­ed by woe­ful­ly unqual­i­fied and unpre­pared attor­neys in his death penal­ty tri­al. It took over a year for the tri­al judge to find an attor­ney to take Wilson’s case. Wilson was indi­gent, and the max­i­mum state fee for a cap­i­­tal-mur­der rep­re­sen­ta­tion was $2,500. The judge even put a note on his cour­t­house door, say­ing:​“PLEASE HELP.