Publications & Testimony

A recent Harris Poll found that only 41% of Americans believe that the death penalty deters crime, marking the smallest number of such respondents in 27 years of this poll. Only 37% of those polled would continue to support capital punishment if they believed “that quite a substantial number of innocent people are convicted of murder.” Overall, 69% percent of those polled said that they support capital punishment. The poll was conducted in December 2003. (PR Newswire, January 7, 2004) See…

In the year since former Illinois Governor George Ryan’s decision to grant clemency to all those awaiting execution in the state, no one has been sentenced to death in Cook County, which includes Chicago. This marks the first time since Illinois reinstated capital punishment in 1977 that the county has not had a death sentence. Cook County has historically sent the highest annual number of defendants to death row. Although Illinois currently has a moratorium on executions in place, prosecutors…

More than a year after the American Bar Association overwhelmingly passed guidelines to raise the quality of defense counsel in death penalty cases, no state has adopted the standards and the ABA continues to voice concern that trials are proceeding under “a system that is desperately broken.” Although the ABA does not take a position on capital punishment other than their opposition to executing juveniles and those with mental retardation, the organization’s 2002 guidelines delineate the…

Still Surviving is First-hand Account of Death Row by Juvenile Offender In his book “Still Surviving,” Nanon Williams, who was 17 at the time of the crime that placed him on death row, provides a first hand account of living under a sentence of death in Texas. The book details Williams’s journey from teenage boy to adulthood while living in the shadow of the nation’s busiest execution chamber. His text introduces readers to the experiences of solitary confinement and having friends executed…

The Death Penalty Information Center’s 2003 Year End Report features a series of significant death penalty developments from the past year, including: The number of executions dropped by 8% from 71 in 2002 to 65 in 2003. After steady increases from 1976 to 2000, the size of death row has decreased. In 2003, the number of death row inmates declined by 5%, the third decrease in as many years. The number of people sentenced to death also continued to decline in 2003, down from 159 in 2002 to a…

Race Plays Powerful Role in Washington State Death Penalty Cases Race plays a significant role in who receives the death penalty in Washington. Research compiled by the Washington Death Penalty Assistance Center, revealed that death notices have never been filed in a case with a white defendant and a black victim, while such notices have been filed in 42% of murder cases with a black defendant and a white victim. Of the 10 individuals currently on death row in Washington, nine cases involved a…

Texas Report Finds Noncompliance With State Defense Laws A review of death penalty defense policies in Texas has uncovered widespread noncompliance with state laws that require each region to adopt qualification standards for capital defense attorneys. Only two of the nine judicial regions in Texas have adopted the standards. A report on the findings has been published by the Equal Justice Center, a Texas organization that advocates for greater fairness in the justice system, and the Texas…

Kansas Study Concludes Death Penalty is Costly Policy In its review of death penalty expenses, the State of Kansas concluded that capital cases are 70% more expensive than comparable non-death penalty cases. The study counted death penalty case costs through to execution and found that the median death penalty case costs $1.26 million. Non-death penalty cases were counted through to the end of incarceration and were found to have a median cost of $740,000. For death penalty cases, the…

Nobel Laureates Oppose Death Penalty, Decry Execution of Juvenile Offenders A gathering of Nobel Laureates in Rome concluded with a common statement calling for abolition of the death penalty and specifically decrying the death penalty for juvenile offenders. The statement noted “the death penalty is a particularly cruel and unusual punishment that should be abolished. It is especially unconscionable when imposed on children.” Among those in attendance at the summit were Mikhail Gorbachev…