Publications & Testimony

A new book authored by Todd Peppers and Laura Trevvett Anderson,​“Anatomy of An Execution,” fol­lows the sto­ry of Douglas Christopher Thomas, a juve­nile offend­er who was exe­cut­ed in Virginia in 2000. Thomas was con­vict­ed of a dou­ble homi­cide in 1990 and sen­tenced to death in 1991. He was one of the last juve­niles put to death before the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the exe­cu­tion of those under the age of 18 at the time of their crime to be…

The edi­tor of the edi­to­r­i­al page of the Palm Beach Post recent­ly called for an end to the death penal­ty in Florida. Citing DPIC​’s recent report on the costs of the death penal­ty, Randy Schultz notes that,​“Every objec­tive study shows that life impris­on­ment costs much less than sen­tenc­ing some­one to death.”​“Money,” he writes,​“dri­ves the new debate in Florida about crim­i­nal jus­tice.” In 2009, the state…

An edi­to­r­i­al in the Salt Lake Tribune recent­ly called for an end to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, stat­ing that​“the legal, moral and prac­ti­cal argu­ments against cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment have evolved from sound to unas­sail­able” since the pun­ish­ment was rein­stat­ed over 30 years ago. The edi­to­r­i­al points to the fal­li­bil­i­ty of the sys­tem as a major con­cern, cit­ing the Death Penalty Information Center​’s report that nine inmates have been…

In 2009, the Death Penalty Information Center released a report enti­tled​“Smart on Crime: Reconsidering the Death Penalty in a Time of Economic Crisis.” The report com­bines an analy­sis of the costs of the death penal­ty with a nation­al poll of police chiefs who put cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment at the bot­tom of their law enforcement…

Gaile Owens (pic­tured) and Mary Winkler are two women who com­mit­ted sim­i­lar crimes under sim­i­lar cir­cum­stances in Tennessee. Both women suf­fered from abuse from the spous­es they killed, and both were exam­ined by the same psy­chol­o­gist, twen­ty years apart. The psy­chol­o­gist said both women suf­fered from bat­tered wom­an’s syn­drome. Mary Winkler con­front­ed her hus­band with a shot­gun and shot him in the back in 2006. Gaile…

Researchers from the University of Texas at Dallas recent­ly pub­lished a study on whether exe­cu­tions deter homi­cides using state pan­el date and employ­ing well-known econo­met­ric pro­ce­dures for pan­el analy­sis. The authors found​“no empir­i­cal sup­port for the argu­ment that the exis­tence or appli­ca­tion of the death penal­ty deters prospec­tive offend­ers from com­mit­ting homi­cide.” The study was pub­lished in the jour­nal of Criminology and Public…

Justice Stevens’s opin­ion about the death penal­ty evolved while he was on the Court. Excepts from Supreme…

In the course of its research, DPIC col­lects rel­e­vant death penal­ty arti­cles that have appeared in print and on media Web sites. Our col­lec­tion cer­tain­ly does not con­tain all such arti­cles, nor do we claim that it rep­re­sents the​“best” arti­cles. It is only a rep­re­sen­ta­tive sam­ple of the exten­sive cov­er­age giv­en to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in print in a par­tic­u­lar year. For those inter­est­ed in exam­in­ing this cov­er­age, we have pre­pared index­es of the articles…

Los Angeles Chief of Police William Bratton recent­ly defend­ed San Francisco Distrist Attorney Kamala Harris for not seek­ing the death penal­ty against a sus­pect in a police killing.​“It’s much cheap­er to sen­tence them to life in prison and throw away the key,” said Bratton, who is endors­ing Harris in seek­ing elec­tion as California’s…

A recent study pub­lished by a Duke University econ­o­mist revealed North Carolina could save $11 mil­lion annu­al­ly if it dropped the death penal­ty. Philip J. Cook, a pro­fes­sor at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy, cal­cu­lat­ed the extra state costs of the death penal­ty dur­ing fis­cal years 2005 and 2006. He cal­cu­lat­ed over $21 mil­lion worth of expens­es that would have been saved if the death penal­ty had been…