Publications & Testimony

The Bureau of Justice Statistics typ­i­cal­ly releas­es an annu­al report enti­tled ​“Capital Punishment” con­tain­ing tables and infor­ma­tion on the death penal­ty for the pre­vi­ous year. Although BJS, which is part of the Department of Justice, did not pub­lish a sep­a­rate report for 2006, it did release infor­ma­tion in tab­u­lar form that quan­ti­fies death penal­ty prac­tice in the U.S. Information drawn from BJS’s recent tables…

In a recent front-page arti­cle in the New York Times, Joshua Marquis, the dis­trict attor­ney in Clatsop County, Oregon, and a vice pres­i­dent of the National District Attorneys Association, indi­cat­ed that most pros­e­cu­tors with expe­ri­ence in death penal­ty cas­es are ambiva­lent about it: ​“Any sane pros­e­cu­tor who is involved in cap­i­tal lit­i­ga­tion will real­ly be ambiva­lent about it,” said Marquis, who has long sup­port­ed the death penal­ty. According to the Times, he said the fam­i­lies of murder…

Professor John Donohue of Yale University’s School of Law recent­ly con­duct­ed a study of death sen­tences in Connecticut and found that seek­ing the death penal­ty often cor­re­lat­ed with the race of the vic­tim and the defen­dant, and not nec­es­sar­i­ly with the sever­i­ty of the crimes, as the law requires. ​“There was basi­cal­ly no ratio­nal sys­tem to explain who got the death penal­ty,” Donohue said. ​“It real­ly is about as ran­dom a process as you can pos­si­bly con­struct.” After review­ing 207 murder cases…

David Baker has writ­ten a thor­ough and insight­ful analy­sis of how the death penal­ty in the U.S. has been used against Native Americans. In ​“American Indian Executions in Historical Context,” Baker places the exe­cu­tion of Native Americans with­in the his­to­ry of colo­nial­ism, slav­ery and the con­quer­ing of indige­nous tribes in ear­ly America. The arti­cle traces these devel­op­ments to the cur­rent era, about which the author…

New…

U.S. Supreme Court stayed the Alabama exe­cu­tion sched­uled for night of Jan. 31.Watch the Independent Film Channel’s piece on the U.S. Supreme Court case regard­ing lethal injec­tion, Baze v. Rees. The video also includes a dis­cus­sion of death penal­ty trends with DPIC’s Richard Dieter and an inter­view with for­mer Texas death row chap­lain Carroll Pickett. 2007: DPIC’s Year End ReportHIGHLIGHTS FROM THE 2007 REPORT Executions for the year: 42 — low­est in 13 years %…

According to new polling analy­sis from the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, sup­port for the death penal­ty among the gen­er­al pub­lic has dropped to 62% (August 2007), down from a high of 80% sup­port in the mid-1990s. Among black respon­dents, 51% opposed the death penal­ty and only 40% were in favor. Hispanics were about even­ly split with 48% in favor of the death penal­ty and 47% opposed. Eighty-two (82%) per­cent of con­ser­v­a­tive Republicans sup­port the death penal­ty, but only 41%…

Kenneth Richey, a British and an American cit­i­zen, is expect­ed to be freed soon after spend­ing 20 years on Ohio’s death row for the mur­der of his ex-girlfriend’s 2‑year-old daugh­ter in a 1986 apart­ment fire. Richey’s con­vic­tion was over­turned by a fed­er­al court in August 2007 after 15 years of appeals that cast doubts on wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny and the com­pe­ten­cy of his defense attor­ney at the ini­tial tri­al. More recent­ly, the orig­i­nal evi­dence pre­sent­ed by arson experts was found to be based on…

The Death Penalty Information Center has released its 13^th annu­al Year End Report, not­ing that exe­cu­tions have dropped to a 13-year low as a de fac­to mora­to­ri­um took hold in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s exam­i­na­tion of lethal injec­tion pro­ce­dures. Death sen­tences have also dropped con­sid­er­ably in recent years. DPIC pro­ject­ed 110 new death sen­tences in 2007 — the low­est num­ber since the death penal­ty was rein­stat­ed in 1976, and a 60% drop since 1999. According to the…

Lubbock crim­i­nal attor­ney Jack E. Stoffregen will head West Texas’ first pub­lic defend­er ser­vice devot­ed sole­ly to cap­i­tal cas­es. Centered in Lubbock County, a sparse­ly pop­u­lat­ed area that has few local crim­i­nal-defense attor­neys with cap­i­tal mur­der tri­al expe­ri­ence, the West Texas Regional Public Defender Office will han­dle the cas­es of indi­gent defen­dants who can­not afford an attor­ney. The office, with a bud­get of $2.5 mil­lion fund­ed by Texas, is expect­ed to alle­vi­ate some of the high costs…