Publications & Testimony

On March 8, Ohio Governor Ted Strickland post­poned the exe­cu­tion of Lawrence Reynolds, who was found uncon­scious in his death row cell hours before he was to be dri­ven to the exe­cu­tion facil­i­ty. Reynolds, who was sen­tenced to die for a mur­der in 1994, appar­ent­ly took an over­dose of pills despite being under a 72-hour watch that includes fre­quent mon­i­tor­ing by prison guards. He was found uncon­scious in his cell around 11:30 pm, and was…

A recent arti­cle by Prof. Jeffrey Kirchmeier of the City University of New York School of Law enti­tled,​“The Undiscovered Country: Execution Competency & Comprehending Death” explores whether men­tal­ly dis­abled inmates who do not under­stand that exe­cu­tion means the end of their phys­i­cal life should be spared. Kirchmeier exam­ines Supreme Court prece­dent under the Eighth Amendment that requires that a con­demned defen­dant be com­pe­tent in order to be…

Most of those orig­i­nal­ly con­demned to death in North Carolina even­tu­al­ly received less­er sen­tences when their cas­es were con­clud­ed, accord­ing to Professor Frank Baumgartner, a researcher at the University of North Carolina. Many of those sen­tenced to death received a new tri­al because their first tri­al was seri­ous­ly flawed. At their sub­se­quent tri­als, the vast major­i­ty were sen­tenced to a pun­ish­ment less than death,…

On March 4, Houston District Judge Kevin Fine grant­ed a pre­tri­al motion in a cap­i­tal case and declared the death penal­ty in Texas uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. Judge Fine said the state’s law vio­lates a defendant’s right to due process because of the risk of exe­cut­ing an inno­cent per­son. The judge based his rul­ing on stud­ies around the coun­try and in Texas that indi­cat­ed,​“it can only be con­clud­ed that inno­cent peo­ple have been executed….Are you…

On March 3, a fed­er­al District Court barred the re-pros­e­cu­­tion of for­mer Ohio death row inmate Joe D’Ambrosio (pic­tured) for the mur­der of Tony Klann over 22 years ago. The court had ruled in 2006 that state pros­e­cu­tors improp­er­ly with­held evi­dence about their star wit­ness that could have exon­er­at­ed D’Ambrosio at his 1989 tri­al. That rul­ing led to D’Ambrosio’s con­vic­tion and death sen­tence being vacat­ed, and he was eventually…

On March 2, Washington became the sec­ond state to switch its lethal injec­tion method from the three-drug cock­tail used in almost all states to a one-drug pro­to­col. Ohio was the first state to change to the sin­­gle-drug pro­to­col after the failed exe­cu­tion attempt involv­ing Romell Broom. Broom was ulti­mate­ly removed from the exe­cu­tion cham­ber when the cor­rec­tion­al offi­cers were unable to com­plete the exe­cu­tion. In…

Gaile Owens is cur­rent­ly on death row in Tennessee and await­ing a deci­sion from the Tennessee Supreme Court on a request to reduce her sen­tence to life. Owens’s attor­neys have asked the state’s high court to remove the death penal­ty because her case presents unique cir­cum­stances that war­rant the rare move. Owens may face exe­cu­tion soon for solic­it­ing the 1985 mur­der of her hus­band, Ronald Owens, a man she said repeat­ed­ly abused her. Sidney…

The Death Penalty Information Center col­lects rel­e­vant death penal­ty arti­cles that have appeared in print and on media Web sites. Our annu­al com­pi­la­tion is a rep­re­sen­ta­tive sam­ple of the exten­sive media cov­er­age giv­en to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment for a par­tic­u­lar year and is not inclu­sive of all such arti­cles. For those inter­est­ed in exam­in­ing the titles and sources for this cov­er­age, we have pre­pared an index of the arti­cles from 2009 in Excel…

Over 1,000 human rights activists from over 100 coun­tries gath­ered in Geneva, Switzerland, for the 4^th World Congress Against the Death Penalty. Many par­tic­i­pants hope to achieve a mora­to­ri­um on the impo­si­tion and exe­cu­tion of the death penal­ty around the world. At present, 56 states and ter­ri­to­ries still have the death penal­ty, includ­ing China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, North Korea and the United States. In 2007, the UN General Assembly adopted…

On February 24, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals over­turned the death sen­tence of Charles Dean Hood because the jury was improp­er­ly instruct­ed about poten­tial­ly mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence at his tri­al. Hood’s case more recent­ly made nation­al news when a pri­or extra­mar­i­tal affair between the tri­al judge and the pros­e­cu­tor was revealed. In 2008, even after the judge and the pros­e­cu­tor admit­ted to their inti­mate rela­tion­ship, the Court…