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 detective in the case, obtained false confessions from…

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 special issue of the Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review. Using charts, graphs…

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 attorneys for Arizona death row inmate Donald Beaty…

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 tested or offered into evidence prior…

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 forest for longer than two weeks…

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 Execution. Moreover, results of searches are sortable by each search category.

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 recently published by the Equal Justice Initiative, Eaton noted…

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 lawyers contend that the use of…