Publications & Testimony

DPIC has added a new easy-to-use state data­base of death penal­ty infor­ma­tion to its Web site. In addi­tion, Richard Dieter’s (DPIC’s Executive Director) tes­ti­mo­ny before the New York State Assembly Standing Committees on Codes, Judiciary, and Correction regard­ing the costs of the death penal­ty is also avail­able. The Committees are hold­ing hear­ings on whether New York should re-instate the death penal­ty. To access infor­ma­tion on any state’s death row pop­u­la­tion, the number…

Judge Patrick Higginbotham of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5^th Circuit called on Texas to pay more than​‘lip ser­vice’ to pro­vid­ing indi­vid­u­als fac­ing the death penal­ty with a tru­ly fair and con­sti­tu­tion­al tri­al. He stat­ed that more resources must be placed on train­ing attor­neys and judges at the tri­al lev­el in order to pro­tect against exe­cut­ing the inno­cent. Higginbotham, writ­ing along with attor­ney Mark Curriden of Vinson & Elkins, not­ed that during the…

A fed­er­al appeals court has ruled that Ohio must either retry British for­eign nation­al Kenny Richey with­in 90 days or free him from death row. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6^th Circuit threw out Richey’s 1987 con­vic­tion and death sen­tence in the arson death of 2‑year-old Cynthia Collins, rul­ing that pros­e­cu­tors failed to offer suf­fi­cient evi­dence of Richey’s guilt. The court also found that his court-appoint­ed attor­ney was​“out­side the wide range of professionally…

Former Illinois death row inmate Steven Manning (pic­tured) has been award­ed $6.6 mil­lion in a civ­il law­suit against two FBI agents. A jury found that the agents had framed Manning twice, includ­ing once for mur­der. The jury found FBI agents Robert Buchan and Gary Miller liable of con­coct­ing evi­dence to frame Manning, their one-time infor­mant and a for­mer Chicago police offi­cer, in the mur­der of a truck­ing firm exec­u­tive and in the kid­nap­ping of two Missouri drug dealers.

New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver voiced seri­ous doubts about the neces­si­ty for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in light of its high cost and the alter­na­tive sen­tenc­ing option of life with­out parole. Silver, who sup­port­ed the death penal­ty in the past, said: ​“I have some doubt whether we need a death penal­ty.… We are spend­ing tens of mil­lions of dol­lars [that] may be bet­ter spent on edu­cat­ing chil­dren.” He also remarked that the life-with­­out-parole statute the state…

On Thursday, January 27, a movie based on the acclaimed play​“The Exonerated” will air on Court TV at 9 p.m. EST. The movie fea­tures award-win­n­ing actors Susan Sarandon, Danny Glover, Aidan Quinn, Brian Dennehy, Delroy Lindo, and David Brown, Jr. giv­ing voice to the trou­bling sto­ries of six per­sons orig­i­nal­ly con­demned to death but who have since been freed from death row. It fol­lows the orig­i­nal the­ater script by Jessica Blank…

A three-part series appear­ing in the Cleveland Plain Dealer exam­ines the cap­i­tal con­vic­tion of John Spirko, who remains on Ohio’s death row for the 1982 mur­der of Elgin, Ohio post­mas­ter Betty Jane Mottinger. The paper’s inves­ti­ga­tion found that Spirko’s imag­i­na­tion and​“not much else” had brought him to the brink of exe­cu­tion despite con­cerns of his inno­cence. Shortly after Mottinger’s body was found, Spirko vol­un­tar­i­ly con­tact­ed police to provide…

Testimony of DPIC Executive Director Richard Dieter before the New York State Assembly Standing Committees on Codes, Judiciary, and Correction on Costs of the Death Penalty and Related Issues (January…

In a recent op-ed in the Albany Times Union, crim­i­nal jus­tice expert Scott Christianson asked that state lead­ers con­sid­er New York’s well-doc­u­­men­t­ed prob­lems with wrong­ful con­vic­tions before try­ing to fix the state’s uncon­sti­tu­tion­al death penal­ty statute. Christianson, a for­mer state crim­i­nal jus­tice offi­cial, doc­u­ment­ed more than 130 cas­es (most of them involv­ing con­vic­tions since 1980), in which inno­cent per­sons were con­vict­ed (most­ly of mur­der) and…

In Kentucky, a Franklin Circuit Court judge will hear evi­dence for pos­si­bly five days in April on whether the state’s method of exe­cut­ing pris­on­ers is humane. Medical experts will tes­ti­fy about the drugs, dosage and train­ing of the peo­ple who admin­is­ter the 3‑drug lethal-injec­­tion cock­tail. Lawyers for con­demned inmates Thomas Clyde Bowling Jr. and Ralph Baze sued the state in August, say­ing Kentucky’s method of exe­cu­tion vio­lates a pris­on­er’s Eighth Amendment right not…