Publications & Testimony

The lat­est edi­tion of the Death Penalty Information Center’s series of pod­casts, DPIC on the Issues, is now avail­able for lis­ten­ing. This pod­cast, Readers’ Choice: Part One, is the first of two episodes that address­es ques­tions sub­mit­ted by read­ers of DPIC’s week­ly e‑newsletter. Generally, this series of pod­casts offers brief, infor­ma­tive dis­cus­sions of key death penal­ty issues. Other recent episodes include discussions on…

More infor­ma­tion has emerged about the wrong­ful con­vic­tion of Anthony Graves (pic­tured), who was exon­er­at­ed from Texas’s death row in 2010. Prosecutor Kelly Siegler, who had tried many cap­i­tal mur­der cas­es and sent 19 peo­ple to death row as a Harris County assis­tant dis­trict attor­ney, and Otto Hanak, a state troop­er and Texas Ranger for 28 years, were brought into the case after an appeals court found that the original…

On January 18, 2011, sev­en reli­gious lead­ers from Texas will hold a ground­break­ing pan­el dis­cus­sion in Houston address­ing faith-based views on the death penal­ty. The pan­el will be mod­er­at­ed by Sister Helen Prejean (pic­tured), author of Dead Man Walking, and Vicki Schieber of Murder Victims’ Families for Human Rights. The free pre­sen­ta­tion will include lead­ers from a diver­si­ty of faiths and denom­i­na­tions, includ­ing: Cardinal…

On December 14, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit reject­ed a claim by Oklahoma death row inmate Jeffrey Matthews that the use of the drug pen­to­bar­bi­tal could result in a cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment. The Court unan­i­mous­ly con­clud­ed that the amount of pen­to­bar­bi­tal author­i­ties plan to use, as the first in a three-drug pro­ce­dure, would like­ly be lethal by itself. The deci­sion also allows…

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…

According to a new report by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) entitled, ​“Slamming the Courthouse Doors: Denial of Access to Justice and Remedy in America,” many states severe­ly restrict access to jus­tice for cap­i­tal defen­dants and lim­it the avail­abil­i­ty of reme­dies to cor­rect errors. The prob­lem of inad­e­quate coun­sel con­tin­ues to per­vade death penal­ty sys­tems across the coun­try:​“Few states pro­vide ade­quate funds to…

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…

A recent op-ed by Pulitzer Prize-win­n­ing colum­nist Nicholas Kristof (pic­tured) of the New York Times focus­es on the pos­si­ble inno­cence of Kevin Cooper, a black defen­dant on California​’s death row. Kristof writes,​“This case is a trav­es­ty. It under­scores the cen­tral pit­fall of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment: no sys­tem is fail-safe. How can we be about to exe­cute a man when even some of America’s lead­ing judges believe he has…

A recent report to the Committee on Defender Services of the Judicial Conference of the United States by Jon Gould and Lisa Greenman pro­vid­ed an update on the costs of rep­re­sen­ta­tion in fed­er­al death penal­ty cas­es. The report exam­ined all cas­es in which the fed­er­al death penal­ty was autho­rized by the U.S. Attorney General between 1998 and 2004. The authors found that​“The medi­an cost of a case in which the Attorney General autho­rized seek­ing the death…

The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear the appeal of Bruce Webster, an inmate on the fed­er­al death row with evi­dence that he is intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abed. In 2002, the Supreme Court ruled in Atkins v. Virginia that the exe­cu­tion of a per­son with intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ties (men­tal retar­da­tion) would be uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. Webster’s evi­dence indi­cates that three fed­er­al doc­tors deter­mined he had an intellectual…