Publications & Testimony

A new book by Dale Recinella, The Biblical Truth About America’s Death Penalty, ana­lyzes cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment through an exam­i­na­tion of reli­gious texts and teach­ings. Using sources such as the Torah, the Talmud, and the Bible, Recinella out­lines what bib­li­cal texts say regard­ing who is deserv­ing of the death penal­ty and who is grant­ed the author­i­ty to impose such a sen­tence. While explor­ing issues such as inno­cence, race, men­tal capac­i­ty, and prosecutorial…

(Note: Dec. 1 exe­cu­tion of Frances Newton has been stayed by the gov­er­nor.) As Texas plans to car­ry out the sched­uled exe­cu­tion of Frances Newton on December 1, a new report doc­u­ment­ing the results of a nation­al sur­vey of women cur­rent­ly on death row found that many women have been sub­ject­ed to harsh liv­ing con­di­tions and that most were sen­tenced for the mur­der of some­one they knew. The report, The Forgotten Population: A Look at Death Row in the United States Through…

A review of Louisiana’s death penal­ty in recent years revealed that twice as many con­demned inmates have walked free from death row than have been exe­cut­ed. Since 1999, of the 22 peo­ple whose cas­es were final­ly resolved, 12 had their death sen­tences reversed and were ordered to serve less­er sen­tences, 6 were freed after courts ordered their charges dis­missed, 1 died of nat­ur­al caus­es, and 3 were exe­cut­ed. Of the three who were exe­cut­ed, two were represented by…

William S. Sessions, who served as direc­tor of the FBI from 1987 to 1993, and Charles F. Baird, a for­mer Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Judge from 1990 to 1998, have called for a halt to exe­cu­tions in Texas because of the risk of exe­cut­ing an inno­cent per­son. Sessions and Baird, both of whom are native Texans, cit­ed the prob­lems at the Houston Crime Lab as a prin­ci­pal rea­son for their doubts about the reli­a­bil­i­ty of the death penal­ty sys­tem: Since November…

A recent Gallup Poll mea­sur­ing pub­lic opin­ion regard­ing the death penal­ty revealed a decline in sup­port for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. The poll found that 66% of Americans sup­port the death penal­ty for those con­vict­ed of mur­der, down 5% from an ear­li­er 2004 poll and sig­nif­i­cant­ly low­er than the high of 80% in 1994. In an analy­sis of Gallup polls on this ques­tion from 2001 to 2004, women were more like­ly to oppose the death penal­ty than men. Among African-American…

Charles Walker is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed in North Carolina on December 3 for the 1992 mur­der of Elmon Davidson. His con­vic­tion rests sole­ly on the tes­ti­mo­ny of snitch tes­ti­mo­ny because author­i­ties were unable to find Davidson’s body or any evi­dence link­ing Walker to the crime. Walker’s attor­neys have asked North Carolina Governor Mike Easley to grant clemen­cy for their client and to reduce his sen­tence to life in prison with­out parole. Walker was con­vict­ed on the…

According to promi­nent New York law­mak­ers, there is lit­tle chance that leg­is­la­tors will pass a bill this year to fix the state’s uncon­sti­tu­tion­al death penal­ty. Many experts believe that the state’s statute, which N.Y.‘s high­est court struck down ear­li­er this year, may nev­er be re-enac­t­ed. Republican Senator Dale M. Volker not­ed that when the Court of Appeals struck down the law, New York heard​“the death knell of the death penal­ty, for the time being.” Sheldon Silver, the…

Editorials in papers around the coun­try have not­ed that many Americans are rethink­ing the death penal­ty because it is deeply flawed. Among the recent edi­to­r­i­al obser­va­tions were the fol­low­ing: New Jersey’s Star-Ledger Fewer peo­ple are being giv­en the death penal­ty in the United States, accord­ing to the Justice Department, which says such sen­tences are at a 30-year low. Last year, the num­ber of peo­ple who were sen­tenced to die totaled 144. While these numbers are…

According to a recent news report, Indiana tax­pay­ers spend mil­lions of dol­lars to send dozens of peo­ple to death row, but more than half of those sen­tenced have had their con­vic­tions over­turned or their sen­tences vacat­ed. In addi­tion, the ris­ing costs of the death penal­ty have result­ed in a more arbi­trary appli­ca­tion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment due to fund­ing con­straints in cer­tain rur­al coun­ties, a fact that has many state res­i­dents ques­tion­ing the pun­ish­men­t’s…

NEW FROM DPIC NEW DPIC SUMMARY DPIC’s Summary of the Chicago Tribune Series on Forensic Science DEATH ROW U.S.A. The July 1, 2004 Edition of Death Row USA (from the NAACP Legal Defense Fund) is avail­able on DPIC’s site. DETERRENCE and the FBI UNIFORM CRIME REPORT 2003 The South (the region with the most exe­cu­tions) again had the high­est mur­der rate in the coun­try in 2003. The two states with the most executions in…