Evolving standards of decency? The Death Penalty in the USA in 2008
by Dr. Andrew D. Moran London Metropolitan University American Politics Group Annual Conference St. Anne’s College, University of Oxford 8th – 11th January 2009 E-mail:...
View ArticleThe Angolite Reviews Developments in Capital Punishment
The Angolite, an award-winning magazine produced by the inmates at Angola Prison in Louisiana, recently published an extensive review of the developments in the death penalty in 2008. The article by...
View ArticleTexas Judge Recommends New Trial in Death Penalty Case where Judge and...
A judge in Texas has recommended that the claim of an unfair trial brought by death row inmate Charles Hood should go forward because the trial judge and prosecutor had a secret romantic relationship...
View ArticleNEW RESOURCES: Lapham's Quarterly--"Crimes and Punishments"
The latest edition of Lapham’s Quarterly features essays from a wide variety of authors reflecting on crime and punishment. At least one of the articles, by Christopher Hitchens, focuses on the death...
View ArticleNEW RESOURCES: DPIC's 2008 Article Index is Available
Each year, DPIC collects relevant death penalty articles that have appeared in print and on media Web sites. Our collection certainly does not contain all such articles, nor do we claim that it...
View ArticleINNOCENCE: "Trial by Fire: Did Texas Execute an Innocent Man?"
In a thorough and penetrating article published in The New Yorker on August 31, David Grann offers further evidence that Texas probably executed an innocent man in 2004. Grann carefully examines all...
View ArticleReaction to Execution of a Probably Innoncent Man Grows
Recent scientific reports indicating that Texas likely executed an innocent man have spurred wide coverage and commentary. Cameron Todd Willingham was executed in 2004 for the arson murder of his three...
View ArticleARTICLES: "Selective Empathy" at Issue in Recent Supreme Court Opinion
Linda Greenhouse, former Supreme Court writer for the New York Times, recently wrote about the reversal of a death sentence by the U. S. Supreme Court. The Court overturned George Porter Jr.'s death...
View ArticleNEW VOICES: Past President of Prestigious American Law Institute Says Death...
Michael Traynor, President Emeritus of the prestigious American Law Institute (ALI), called the ALI’s recent withdrawal of its model death penalty law “a striking repudiation from the very organization...
View ArticleOP-EDS: "Kansas pretends its capital punishment system is working"
Mike Hendricks, columnist for the Kansas City Star, recently described how the state goes through the motions of having a death penalty, but with no immediate prospect of its use after 16 years....
View ArticleRESOURCES: DPIC's 2009 Article Index Now Available
The Death Penalty Information Center collects relevant death penalty articles that have appeared in print and on media Web sites. Our annual compilation is a representative sample of the extensive...
View ArticleNEW VOICES: "Death penalty hurts – not helps – families of murder victims"
Kathleen Garcia, a victims' advocate and expert on traumatic grief, recently shared her opinions on the death penalty in New Hampshire, a state that is studying the issue through its Commission on...
View ArticleThe Angolite: A Prison Magazine's Inside View on Choosing Execution
A recent issue of the award-winning prison news magazine, The Angolite, featured a story by inmate Lane Nelson aboutGerald Bordelon, the first person to be executed in Louisiana since 2002. Bordelon...
View ArticleJustice Stevens as Legal Innovator
Below is an essay for our thirty-day series on John Paul Stevens by James Liebman, the Simon H. Rifkind Professor of Law at Columbia Law School. Liebman was a clerk for Justice Stevens during the 1978...
View ArticleFive Myths About the Death Penalty
David Garland, a professor of law and sociology at New York University, recently addressed some common myths regarding the death penalty in America. In an op-ed in the Washington Post, Garland...
View ArticleOP-ED: America's Death Penalty "Broken Beyond Repair"
An op-ed by Bob Herbert of the New York Timeshighlights issues raised by former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens that changed his mind on the death penalty in the U.S. Herbert cites information...
View ArticleHow Preconceptions and Bias May Have Led to Wrongful Convictions of West...
In a recent op-ed in the L.A. Times, Professor Jennifer L. Mnookin (pictured) of the UCLA Law School provided an analysis of how preconceptions and biases toward the unconventional suspects known as...
View ArticleFlorida's Death Penalty Marked by Arbitrary Decisions
Mike Thomas, columnist for the Orlando Sentinel in Florida, recently examined the arbitrariness of the state's death penalty system. "There is no rhyme or reason here," he wrote. "A governor's...
View ArticleOP-ED: Mario Cuomo Calls Capital Punishment Corrosive to Society
In a recent op-ed in the New York Daily News, former New York Governor Mario Cuomo called the death penalty a "serious moral problem" that is "corrosive" to a democratic citizenry. He said many of the...
View ArticleDPIC IN THE NEWS: Media Coverage of Year End Report
Over 400 media outlets around the country reported on DPIC's recent 2011 Year-End Report. Coverage included stories on the dramatic drop in death sentences, the decline in executions, and fewer states...
View ArticleRACE: Commentary on the Anniversary of McCleskey v. Kemp
In an op-ed written for the 25th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in McCleskey v. Kemp, nationally acclaimed death penalty expert James Acker (pictured) called for a reassessment of how...
View ArticleARTICLES: The Tensions Between Protecting the Innocent and the Objectives of...
A recent article in the Justice Quarterly by Professor James Acker (pictured) and Rose Bellandi of the University at Albany, New York, examined whether there is an irreconcilable conflict between...
View ArticleSTUDIES: Reasons Behind the Abolition of the Death Penalty in Illinois
A new report by Rob Warden (pictured), Executive Director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions, explores the conditions that led to the end of Illinois's death penalty in 2011. Warden says abolition...
View ArticleHow the Death Penalty Might Be Ended in California
In a recent op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle, death penalty scholar Franklin Zimring suggested that the close (52-48%) vote in November on California’s Proposition 34 to end capital punishment...
View ArticleMENTAL ILLNESS: Texas Inmate Gouges Out Eyes, Remains on Death Row
Texas death-row inmate Andre Thomas has been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, and auditory hallucinations drove him to gouge out both of his eyes. Nevertheless, prosecutors still believe he...
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