State & Federal
Vermont
Famous Cases
Robert Drew, a Vermont native, was executed in Texas on August 2, 1994. Drew maintained his innocence, but was denied a hearing on new evidence. Prominent Vermonters, including then-Governor Howard Dean, Representative Bernard Sanders, and Catholic Bishop Kenneth Angell asked Texas Governor Ann Richards for clemency for Drew.
Notable Exonerations
In 1819, two brothers in Manchester were sentenced to death for the alleged murder of their brother-in-law. The brothers were spared at the last moment, however, when the supposed “dead” man showed up in town.
Milestones in Abolition/Reinstatement
In 1838, Vermont’s legislature defeated an abolition bill by only three votes. If the bill had passed, it would have made Vermont the first state to abolish the death penalty.
The Vermont legislature took no action to reintroduce capital punishment after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down all existing death-penalty laws in Furman v. Georgia in 1972, ending the death penalty in the state.
News & Developments
News
Sep 28, 2018
Judge Approves Plea Deal in Case That Challenged the Constitutionality of the Federal Death Penalty
A federal judge in Vermont has accepted a plea deal between Donald Fell and federal prosecutors, permanently removing Fell from death row and ending a case that had raised serious questions about the constitutionality of the federal death penalty. Under the terms of the deal, approved by U.S. District Court Judge Geoffrey Crawford on September 28, 2018, Fell will serve a sentence of life without parole for the interstate kidnapping and murder of Teresca King in 2000. Fell and his co-defendant, Robert Lee, abducted King in Rutland, Vermont, and drove…
Read MoreDec 14, 2016
Judge Finds Federal Death Penalty Arbitrary and Unreliable, But Leaves Constitutionality for Supreme Court to Decide
After a two-week long “extensive hearing regarding the unreliability and arbitrariness of the death penalty system, the excessive delay involved in executions, and the growing decline in the use of the death penalty,” U.S. District Court Judge Geoffrey Crawford (pictured) ruled in the case of U.S. v. Donald Fell that the Federal Death Penalty Act (“FDPA”) “falls short of the [constitutional] standard … for identifying defendants who meet objective criteria for imposition of the death penalty,” but nonetheless allowed Fell’s capital trial to move forward.
Read MoreJul 15, 2016
Court Hearing Under Way on Constitutionality of Federal Death Penalty
A court hearing is under way in the capital trial of Donald Fell in a Vermont federal district court challenging the constitutionality of the federal death penalty. This week, death penalty experts testified for the defense about systemic problems Fell’s lawyers say may render the federal death penalty unconstitutional. Fell was sentenced to death in 2006, but was granted a new trial because of juror misconduct. The hearing began on July 11 and is scheduled to continue until July 22. Judge Geoffrey W. Crawford, who is presiding over the hearing…
Read MoreFeb 12, 2016
Judge Orders Evidentiary Hearing On Constitutionality of Federal Death Penalty
U.S. District Court Judge Geoffrey Crawford has ordered an evidentiary hearing on Donald Fell’s (pictured) challenge to the constitutionality of the federal death penalty. In court filings seeking to bar federal prosecutors from seeking death against him in a pending retrial, Fell has argued that the federal death penalty constitutes cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Fifth and Eighth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Among other grounds, he has asserted that the death penalty no longer comports with contemporaneous U.S. values and that there are significant racial and…
Read MoreNov 30, 2015
Defendants Begin Systemic Challenges to Constitutionality of Death Penalty
Lawyers for capital defendants and death row inmates across the country have begun to respond to what lawyers in one federal case described as the “clarion call for reconsideration of the constitutionality of the death penalty” issued by Supreme Court Justices Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg in their dissenting opinion in June in Glossip v. Gross.
Read MoreFeb 04, 2011
Sen. Leahy Introduces Bill to Reauthorize Justice for All Act
On February 1, Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D‑Vermont) introduced legislation (S. 250) that would reauthorize the Justice for All Act. The Act, first passed in 2004, provided important tools and assistance to help state and local governments use DNA evidence to convict the guilty and exonerate the innocent. It also bolstered crime victim support services. If re-authorized, the Justice for All Act would direct more resources to improving the quality of representation in state death penalty cases, adjust the requirements to obtain grants through the Kirk Bloodsworth Post-Conviction DNA…
Read MoreJan 01, 2011
RESOURCES: New FBI Report Shows U.S. Murder Rate Unchanged Over 5 Years
The FBI recently released the latest version of its Uniform Crime Reports: Crime in the United States 2005. The report showed that the murder rate in 2005 (5.6 murders per 100,000 people) was the same as in 2001, with little change in the intervening years. Death sentences, executions and the size of death row all declined during this period. As in previous years, the South had the higherst murder rate, 6.6, among the 4 geographical regions. Over 80% of the executions in the country have occurred in the South since…
Read More