Special Announcement

We want to continue to build the list of people receiving this bi-weekly Death Penalty Update, an excellent overview of death penalty news stories, scheduled executions, and new resources.  Please take a minute to let your colleagues, friends, family and members know that they can now subscribe simply by sending an email to Josh Noble, at jnoble@dcaclu.org, and typing ""Death Penalty Update"" in the subject line.  

News

Utah Eliminates Firing Squad Executions
(March 17, 2004) 

Utah Governor Olene Walker has signed into law legislation eliminating firing squad executions.  Last year, exercising their right under Utah law, two death row inmates, Roberto Arguelles and Troy Michael Kell, chose to die by firing squad instead of lethal injection.  Arguelles and Kell's executions were ultimately stayed to allow the state legislature to debate firing squad executions.  Some lawmakers argued that eliminating firing squad executions would deny inmates the right to ""go out in a blaze of glory.""   Despite the measure's passage, Utah will allow Arguelles and Kell, along with two other death row inmates who have already elected to die by firing squad, to be executed by a firing squad.  For these executions, the Utah Corrections Department will recruit law enforcement officers to volunteer for a five-person firing squad.  A hood will be placed over the condemned man's head, and a target pinned over his heart. The executioners will fire simultaneously from gun portals in a separate room. One of the five rifles will contain a blank so that no one knows who fired the fatal shots.  Of the 901 inmates executed since 1976, only two have been executed by firing squads, both in Utah: Gary Gilmore in 1977 and John Albert Taylor in 1996.  Idaho and Oklahoma also have the firing squad as a method of execution, but have never used it. 
Read An Article From CNN 

Texas Crime Lab Secretly Closes Down

(March 16, 2004)  

The Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) reportedly secretly shut down one of its DNA crime labs last summer after an internal audit uncovered quality-control deficiencies.  The McAllen DPS lab was supposed to be the gold standard for Texas DNA. However, during the closure DPS reviewed as many as 300 criminal cases that involved DNA evidence processed by the lab.  The agency did not inform law enforcement officials or defense attorneys and defendants about the closure of the lab or the review of cases.  Texas crime lab scandals are nothing new.  In December of 2002, the Houston Police Department's crime lab was shut down following an investigation that revealed widespread problems, including gross mishandling and misinterpretation of DNA evidence by laboratory personnel.  More than 1,300 cases involving DNA tests are currently under review, and so far, some 375 cases have been targeted for retesting.  One person, Josiah Sutton, was released from prison in March after serving 4 years in jail for a crime he did not commit.  

Houston's crime labs are certainly not the only ones with problems.  In 2001, DNA labs in Oklahoma came under scrutiny when Joyce Gilchrist, an Oklahoma City Police chemist whose testimony was used to convict hundreds of accused criminals, was found to have misrepresented forensic hair and fiber analyses on numerous occasions.  Gilchrist's testimony helped win convictions in 23 death penalty cases and hundreds of other cases.  At the time her negligence was exposed, eleven of those death row inmates had already been put to death and twelve others remained on death row.  The frequency of these scandals is a reminder that DNA testing is only as effective as the people conducting the tests and reminds us of the fallibility of science.  
Learn More About DNA Testing and the Death Penalty 

Blackmun Papers Document Conversion On Capital Punishment
(March 15, 2004) 

The late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun's papers, recently opened by the Library of Congress, chronicle his struggles with the issue of capital punishment.  Blackmun, who initially believed the death penalty was a matter for the states to decide, later became an ardent opponent of capital punishment based on his view that it could not be fairly implemented. For example, in 1968, Blackmun upheld the death sentence of a man convicted of rape in Arkansas.  In his opinion, Blackmun wrote, ""The author of this opinion?is not personally convinced of the rightness of capital punishment and?questions it as an effective deterrent.""  However, Blackmun added that it was a policy matter better handled by state legislatures than the courts.  In 1972, Blackmun voted with the dissent against Furman v. Georgia, which ruled the death penalty as arbitrary and capricious.  Blackmun voted with the majority in the 1976 Gregg v. Georgia decision that upheld the constitutionality of the death penalty if procedures were in place to guide the discretion of the judge and jury. He filed a powerful dissent in the case McClesky v. Kemp when the majority failed to rule that a racially biased pattern of death sentencing is unconstitutional. 

In 1994, at the end of his career, in a famous dissent delivered in Callins v. Collins, Blackmun wrote, ""For more than 20 years I have endeavored -- indeed, I have struggled?to develop procedural and substantive rules that would lend more than the mere appearance of fairness to the death penalty endeavor. Rather than continue to coddle the Court's delusion that the desired level of fairness has been achieved and the need for regulation eviscerated, I feel morally and intellectually obligated simply to concede that the death penalty experiment has failed?From this day forward I shall no longer tinker with the machinery of death.""
Read An Article From the Washington Post 

NAACP LDF Releases Latest 'Death Row USA' (DPIC)
(March 15, 2004) 

The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF) has released its latest Death Row USA report. Data from this and previous reports for 2003 show that there were 143 new death sentences in the United States in 2003, the fewest number since 1977 and about 50% fewer than the annual new sentences in the late 1990s, which averaged about 300 per year. According to LDF, 3,503 people were on death row in the United States as of January 1, 2004, a decrease from the 3,697 reported on October 1, 2002. Of those 1.4% are women and 2.28% are juveniles. The jurisdictions with the most juvenile offenders on death row include Texas (28), Alabama (15), Louisiana (7), Arizona (6), and Mississippi and North Carolina (5 each). Jurisdictions with the highest percentage of people of color on death row include Colorado (100%), U.S. Military (86%), U.S. Government (75%), Louisiana (72%), and Pennsylvania (70%). In addition to information about those who are currently on death row in the United States, Death Row USA contains data about those who have been executed and an update on cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.
View 'Death Row USA' 

Death Sentence Commuted For Mentally Retarded Inmate
(March 12, 2004) 

Texas Governor Rick Perry has commuted the death sentence of Robert Smith because of his mental retardation to Life in Prison. The Governor's decision has been expected since January after a Harris County District Attorney's own expert diagnosed Smith as retarded.  A district court formally confirmed Smith's mental retardation last month.  Smith's IQ was measured at 63, which is seven points below the retardation threshold.  In 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling in Atkins v. Virginia banning the execution of those with mental retardation. The Court held that the execution of mentally retarded violated the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.  Smith's commutation marks the first time Governor Perry, who since taking office in 2000 has presided over 81 executions, has commuted a death sentence.  
Learn More About Mental Retardation and the Death Penalty

Upcoming Executions 
MARCH

03/09/04          PA       Steven Hutchinson - Stayed 
03/11/04          PA       Kenneth Miller - Stayed
03/11/04          TN       Olen Hutchison - Stayed
03/15/04          KY      Donald Herb Johnson - Stayed
03/19/04          SC       David Clayton Hill - Stayed
03/23/04          OK      Hung Thanh Le - Foreign National
03/26/04          NV      Lawrence Colwell - Abandoned Appeals
03/30/04          OH      William Wickline
03/30/04          TX       Edward Capetillo - Juvenile - Stayed 
03/31/04          VA       Dennis Orbe

APRIL
04/13/04          TX       Michael Rosales
04/29/04          TX       Anzel Jones - Juvenile - Stayed 

NCADP Execution Alerts 

Hung Le: Scheduled Execution by Oklahoma, March 23rd. Update: Executed
The Vietnamese-American Community, the ACLU, and many others want the March 23 execution of Huang Thanh Le commuted.  These groups believe that Le suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder stemming from his life in Vietnam and escaping through Cambodia before becoming a refugee in the United States.  In 1995, Le was convicted for the murder of Hai Hong Nguyeen.  At his original trial, Le's attorney did not introduce evidence of Le's Post Tramatic Stress Disorder, which might have led to a lesser sentence.  Although Oklahoma's Pardon and Parole Board unanimously recommended the commutation of Le's sentence to life, Governor Brad Henry rejected the recommendation.  Despite his pre-election promise to support a moratorium on executions, Henry has ignored three recommendations for clemency from the Pardon and Parole Board.  

Action Alerts From the ACLU 

Legislative Update

Federal Legislation

Urge Congress To Oppose Overreaching and Punitive Crime Laws

Less than 18 months after the Senate passed rational and balanced federal juvenile justice legislation, two Senators have introduced a new punitive bill that would expand the use of the death penalty and create new ill-defined crimes.

Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) have introduced the Gang Prevention and Effective Deterrence Act of 2003 (S. 1735), a measure that includes dangerous provisions that would expand the use of the death penalty to additional crimes and create additional federal ""gang"" crimes that lack clear definition. 

This dangerous bill would use a very broad definition of gang membership to make a person eligible for the death penalty, even if they themselves, did not commit the murder.

Take Action!  Let your Senator know that expanding the death penalty and creating new ill-defined crimes is neither rational nor fair. 

Click Here To Send A Free Fax 

Innocence Protection Act

On October 1, bipartisan members of both the House and Senate introduced an Omnibus Bill called ""the Advancing Justice Through DNA Technology Act"".  Title III of the bill contains a revised version of the Innocence Protection Act that was introduced in the 107^th Congress. This version of the IPA would, among other things, set up a process for federal prisoners who meet the standards in the bill to obtain access to DNA testing and obtain relief if exonerated by the DNA results. Title III would also encourage states to set up similar mechanisms and provide funding to local prosecutors and defense lawyers to improve the quality of representation in death penalty cases. 

Other provisions of the Omnibus bill would, however, greatly expand the categories of individuals at the federal and state level whose DNA information could be stored in the national Combined DNA Index System (CODIS). Current law permits DNA information for those convicted of violent federal crimes and those convicted of state felonies to be stored. This new measure would extend the reach of CODIS to those convicted of additional federal crimes, those convicted of any state offense and any other offense for which DNA information has been collected under state law or practice-going well beyond those who have been convicted of committing a crime.

Another provision would indefinitely toll the statute of limitations for federal felonies so that it does not begin to run until the government implicates the individual by means of DNA testing. This provision raises a number of serious due process concerns stemming from the possibility of indictments being handed down decades after a crime occurred.   

The House of Representatives has already passed the Advancing Justice Through DNA Testing Act.  IPA supporters are working toward Senate action.  

Support the Federal Death Penalty Abolition Act

On June 24, 2003, U.S. Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) introduced H.R. 2574, the Federal Death Penalty Abolition Act of 2003. This legislation, which is a companion bill to Senate legislation introduced by Senator Feingold (D-WI), will put an immediate halt to executions and forbid the imposition of the death penalty as a sentence for violations of federal law. Please contact your U.S. Representative today to urge him/her to co-sponsor and support this important legislation! Note: If your Congressional Representative is an original co-sponsor, please thank him or her instead.

State Legislation 

New Hampshire Juvenile Death Penalty Repeal Effort Gaining Momentum 

New Hampshire is one of a handful of states that has the juvenile death penalty on its books, but has no juvenile offenders on its death row nor has ever executed a juvenile offender.  The NH Senate has already passed SB 513 (a bill to ban the execution of 17 year old offenders).  A Hearing is scheduled for the NH House on Wednesday, March 24^th @ 11am in Room 204 of the Legislative Office Building. 

New Hampshire residents/constituents of your organizations from New Hampshire should contact their legislator and urge them to support SB 513: 

http://capwiz.com/ncadp/issues/bills/?bill=5032741  

PA:  

Pennsylvania Residents: Support a Moratorium on Executions in Pennsylvania

Citizens in Pennsylvania showed their support for a statewide moratorium on executions during Moratorium Week 2004, which ended on March 4th. The governor received hundreds of phone calls and demonstrations, debates and other events were held throughout the state in protest of the state's capital punishment policy. 

During his campaign for governor, Ed Rendell -- a former district attorney and death penalty proponent -- stated that he would support a temporary freeze on executions if there was compelling evidence of errors and unfairness in the system. 

On March 4, 2003, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court Committee on Racial and Gender Bias in the Justice System released a report recommending an immediate moratorium on executions, citing evidence of racial bias and the failure of Pennsylvania to ensure competent representation for indigent defendants.  Gov. Rendell has since stated repeatedly that he has seen no compelling evidence of problems with Pennsylvania's death penalty system.

The exoneration of death row prisoner Nicholas Yarris on December 9, 2003, is one of the most significant developments in the history of the death penalty in Pennsylvania.  After spending more than two decades on death row for a crime he did not commit, Yarris joins Jay Smith, Neil Ferber, William Nieves, Hank Kimbell, and Fred Thomas (who died on death row after having his conviction dismissed while prosecutors stalled with appeals) - innocent men who spent a combined total of nearly 50 years on Pennsylvania's death row before they were finally exonerated.  

Pennsylvania has now exonerated twice as many death row prisoners (6) as it has executed (3) since the reinstatement of the death penalty. 

Take Action! Urge Governor Rendell to declare a temporary freeze on executions in Pennsylvania until these apparent problems with the death penalty are resolved.

Click here to send a fax to Governor Rendell

New Resources 

Spangenberg Report Provides Death Penalty Update (DPIC)

The March 2004 edition of The Spangenberg Report includes valuable information on criminal justice reforms from around the country, including death penalty developments. An examination of Georgia's new Public Defender Standards Council and its efforts to overhaul indigent defense services in the state, results from a Spangenberg Group study of indigent defense in Virginia, the findings of a death penalty cost review in Kansas, and additional state updates from Illinois, Texas, Minnesota, and Massachusetts are among the items highlighted in the report. A summation of Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy's remarks during the American Bar Association's annual meeting in San Francisco and a discussion of the Supreme Court's decision to review the constitutionality of the juvenile death penalty are also provided.
Visit The Spangenberg Group's Website 

""Evolving Standards of Decency"" Resource Kit

The Criminal Justice Reform Education Fund and the American Bar Association Juvenile Justice Center have created a resource kit that provides a comprehensive overview of the juvenile death penalty.  The "Evolving Standards of Decency" Resource Kit includes links that provide more information on the juvenile death penalty, including an overview of the juvenile death penalty, facts and figures, the latest science, and national and international policy statements. 
View The Resource Kit

Arbitrariness and Racial Disparities in Death Sentencing (DPIC)

In a recent study examining death-sentencing trends around the country, researchers reported significant differences between the rates at which black defendants who kill white victims are sentenced to death, as compared to the rate at which black defendants who kill black victims are sentenced to death. In every one of the seven states for which data was available, blacks who kill whites were far more likely to receive a death sentence than blacks who killed blacks.  (Blume, T. Eisenberg, & M. Wells, "Explaining Death Row's Population and Racial Composition," 1 Journal of Empirical Legal Studies 165, 197).  
Learn More About Race and the Death Penalty 

'Debating the Death Penalty' (Edited by Hugo Adam Bedau and Paul Cassell)
When news breaks that a convicted murderer, released from prison, has killed again, or that an innocent person has escaped the death chamber in light of new DNA evidence, arguments about capital punishment inevitably heat up. Few controversies continue to stir as much emotion as this one, and public confusion is often the result. This volume brings together seven experts--judges, lawyers, prosecutors, and philosophers--to debate the death penalty in a spirit of open inquiry and civil discussion. Here, as the contributors present their reasons for or against capital punishment, the multiple facets of the issue are revealed in clear and thought-provoking detail?By representing the viewpoints of experts who face the vexing questions about capital punishment on a daily basis, Debating the Death Penalty makes a vital contribution to a more nuanced understanding of the moral and legal problems underlying this controversy.
Purchase 'Debating the Death Penalty'

Visit DPIC For More Resources

Upcoming Events

Ongoing, Nationwide

""The Exonerated"" - New York City shows are temporarily cancelled. They might resume in May. National Tour Stops coming up in:

3/25-3/28         Atlanta/Naples              Ferst Center/Naples Philharmonic
3/30-4/4           Orlando                        Bob Carr
4/6-4/11           Minneapolis            &nb