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

Ryan Matthews: 115^th Death Row Inmate Exonerated

(August 9, 2004)

Ryan Matthews has become the nation's 115^th death row inmate exonerated since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.  In June 2004, after five years on Louisiana's death row and one year after DNA tests suggested his innocence, a new trial was granted to Matthews and he was released from prison.  Matthews was released after prosecutors failed to link the DNA recovered from the murder scene to Matthews.  The DNA tests, however, linked the evidence to another man in prison in Louisiana for another unrelated murder.  Based on the lack of evidence, prosecutors dismissed all charges against Matthews.

Matthews was sentenced to die for the 1999 murder of a Badge City grocer.  Matthews' conviction drew international attention because he was sentenced to death as a juvenile despite evidence of his mental retardation.  After Matthews' release in June, his attorney said, ""This is the Trifecta in terms of the death penalty.  Ryan was a juvenile at the time of the murder, he's retarded, and he's innocent.""  Matthews is the third death row inmate exonerated in 2004 the seventh to be freed in Louisiana since 1981. 

DPIC's Press Release

Read More About Innocence and the Death Penalty

Democrats No Longer Pushing Death Penalty in Their Platform

(July 30, 2004)

For the first time since the 1980s, the Democratic platform will not endorse the death penalty.  While writing the platform, the drafting committee removed the section endorsing the use of capital punishment based on John Kerry's firm opposition to the death penalty.  John Kerry's views on capital punishment differ from Bill Clinton and Al Gore.  Kerry, who is often accused of flip-flopping on a number of different issues, has maintained strict opposition to the death penalty.  Kerry opposes the death penalty in virtually all cases.  After the September attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, Kerry said he would consider death sentences, in limited circumstances, for cases involving terrorism.  Massachusetts, Kerry's home state, along with eleven other states and the District of Columbia have abolished the death penalty. 

Read An Article From 'The Nation'

Number Of Incarcerated Persons Reaches New Record

(July 26, 2004)

According to a new study by the Justice Department, a record 6.9 million adults were incarcerated or on probation or parole last year, which is nearly 131,000 more than in 2002.  These findings indicate that approximately 1 in 32 adults, or 3.2 percent of the U.S. adult population, were incarcerated or placed on probation or parole at the end of 2003.  The study also found a record 4.8 million adults were on probation or parole in 2003, about 73,000 more than the year before.  California and Texas alone counted for about 1 million.  The report attributes the dramatic increase to the use of mandatory parole after prison release and a decrease in the use of discretionary releases overseen by parole boards. 

Despite these finding, an August 2003 survey by the Bureau of Justice Statistics found that crime has dropped to its lowest rate since 1973.  The annual BJS survey identified about 23 million crime victims last year, a slight decrease from the year before, and dramatically lower than the 44 million recorded when studies began in 1973. The rate of violent crimes, which includes rapes, robberies, and assaults, was about 23 victims for every 1,000 U.S. residents 12 or older last year. That compares with 25 victims per 1,000 in 2001 and 50 in 1993. Despite the significant decrease in the crime rate, the U.S. prison and jail population increased dramatically in 2002 to 2,033,331 people at the end of last year, accounting for one out of every 143 residents. This phenomenon is unquestionably related to ""get-tough"" crime control policies, many of which were adopted at a time when crime rates and the fear of crime were greater.

Read An Article From CNN

New York Legislators Put Off Attempts To Fix State Death Penalty Statue

(July 25, 2004)

Opposition from state legislators has halted attempts to pass a bill that would offer a ""fix"" to the New York death penalty statue struck down by the State Court of Appeals last month.  Legislators had hoped to pass the bill before the summer recess at the end of July.  Opposition from a number of state legislators caused Majority Leader Paul Tokasz to announce that legislators were ""going to take some time with it"" before deciding how to address concerns raised by the court.

The 4-to-3 ruling by the State Court of Appeals in Albany effectively suspended the New York death penalty.  The Court ruled that a central provision of the state's capital punishment law violated the State Constitution in that the rules might unconstitutionally coerce jurors into voting for a death sentence rather than risking a deadlock by holding out for life without parole.  In the event that a jury cannot agree on a sentence, a judge must impose a sentence between 20 and 25 years to life, with the possibility of parole.  The Court wrote, ""The deadlock instruction gives rise to an unconstitutionally palpable risk that one or more jurors who cannot bear the thought that a defendant may walk the streets again?will join jurors favoring death in order to avoid the deadlock sentence.""  The Court ordered death row inmate Stephen LaValle to be resentenced to life without parole or a parole-eligible sentence between 20 and 25 years to life.  The three other inmates on New York's death row will also be resentenced.  The court also ruled that the death penalty could not be used for nine pending capital cases. 

Read A Summary of the New York Ruling  

Upcoming Executions

AUGUST

08/12/04            NV           Terry Dennis - Abandoned Appeals

08/18/04            VA            James Hudson

08/19/04            TN            Gregory Thompson - Stayed

08/25/04            TX            Jasen Busby

08/26/04            OK           Windel Workman

08/26/04            TX            James Allridge III

08/26/04            PA            Wilfredo Ramos - Stayed

SEPTEMBER

09/21/04            TX            Andrew Flores

09/22/04            TN            Philip Workman

OCTOBER

10/05/04            TX            Edward Green

10/06/04            TX            Peter Miniel

10/20/04            TX            Ricky Morrow

10/26/04            TX            Dominique Green

NCADP Execution Alerts

Action Alert

 New York Residents: Oppose a "Fix" of the New York Death Penalty

The New York legislature is now considering legislation to ""fix"" its death penalty statute, even though New York has not had a single execution since the death penalty was reinstated in 1995, but has spent $170 million trying to kill a handful of people.  

On June 24, 2004, the New York Court of Appeals struck down the New York death penalty statute as being unconstitutional.  The New York Senate is now considering legislation to ""fix"" the law, but many legislators believe New York would be better off without a death penalty.  

We need your help to encourage those members of the Assembly and Senate who want to do the right thing to vote against a new death penalty bill. 

Take Action!  Urge your Assembly Member and Senator to vote against any measures to fix New York's death penalty and instead to support its removal. 

The death penalty is broken -- a quick fix makes no sense.   Since reinstatement of the death penalty in 1995, New Yorkers have spent $170 million prosecuting a handful of cases, none of which will end in an execution.  We could waste another 170 million dollars and find that the law still doesn't work.   As other states have already found out, administration of the death penalty is fraught with error, prejudice, bigotry and political influence.  

The death penalty is not a deterrent and may, in fact, lead to an increase in homicides.

Every reputable academic study has proven that the death penalty does not provide any additional deterrent value beyond that of a lengthy prison sentence.  FBI crime rates show that death penalty states have higher homicide rates than neighboring abolition states.  This appears to be the case in New York as well.  Since the death penalty was reinstated in 1995, the homicide rate has risen significantly in Rochester, where prosecutors often seek the death penalty, and fallen dramatically in Manhattan, where a death sentence never has been sought.