Death Penalty Information Center

Death Penalty Information Center
Formation 1990 (1990)
Type Non-profit organization
Purpose Information on issues concerning capital punishment
Headquarters Washington, DC
Executive director
 Robert Dunham
Director of Research and Special Projects
 Robin Konrad[1]
Website deathpenaltyinfo.org

The Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) is a non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C., that focuses on disseminating studies and reports related to the death penalty by itself and others to the news media and general public. DPIC was founded in 1990 and is primarily focused on the application of capital punishment in the United States.

DPIC does not take a formal position on the death penalty, but is critical of how it is administered.[2][3][4] As a result, some have referred to it as an anti-death penalty organization.[5][6] According to a pro-death penalty prosecutor, DPIC is "probably the single most comprehensive and authoritative internet resource on the death penalty", but "makes absolutely no effort to present any pro-death penalty views".[7]

Personnel and funding

The Center's executive director is Robert Dunham, succeeding Richard Dieter in March 2015. Dieter had been executive director since 1992. George H. Kendall, of counsel at the national law firm, Squire Patton Boggs, is president of the board of directors. He succeeded David J. Bradford, co-chairman of the litigation department for the national law firm, Jenner & Block, and the founding attorney of the Roderick and Solange MacArthur Justice Center, and the late Michael Millman.

DPIC received funding from the European Union in 2009.[8]

Reports

DPIC releases an annual report on the death penalty,[9] highlighting significant developments and trends and featuring the latest statistics. The Center also produces in-depth reports on various issues related to the death penalty such as arbitrariness, costs, innocence, and race.[10]

Innocence List

In 1993, the United States House Committee on the Judiciary asked DPIC for assistance in identifying the risks that innocent people might be executed. That request led to the creation of DPIC's Innocence List, initially released as a Staff Report by the Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights Committee on the Judiciary.[11] The list was compiled using the objective criterion of legal exoneration. To be included, individuals must have been convicted and sentenced to death and then subsequently either: (1) been acquitted of all charges related to the crime that placed them on death row; (2) had all charges related to the crime that placed them on death row dismissed by the prosecution or the courts; or (3) been granted a complete pardon based on evidence of innocence.[12] DPIC has continued to update the list, which as of September 1, 2017, documented 159 exonerations of persons who had been wrongly convicted and sentenced to death. The list does not include individuals who are innocent of the murder, but were involved in the crime in some lesser manner, or innocent prisoners who nonetheless pled guilty or no-contest to lesser crimes they did not commit in order to ensure their release from prison.[13]

Botched Executions

DPIC maintains a lists of executions it considered to have been "botched", concluding that 276 executions between 1890 and 2010 did not go according to plan.[14]

In 2008, the Supreme Court of the United States heard oral arguments in Baze v. Rees, a case challenging the three-drug cocktail used for many executions by lethal injection. The respondent's lawyer, Roy T. Englert, Jr., criticized DPIC's botched executions list, on the grounds that a majority of the executions on it “did not involve the infliction of pain, but were only delayed by technical problems", such as difficulty in finding a suitable vein.[15]

References

  1. ↑ "Staff and Board of Directors". Death Penalty Information Center. Archived from the original on September 5, 2017. Retrieved September 5, 2017.
  2. ↑ "Grant Schulte, Associated Press, Company: Nebraska shouldn't have gotten death penalty drug". Lincoln Journal Star. April 13, 2017. Archived from the original on September 5, 2017. Retrieved September 5, 2017.
  3. ↑ "Alan Blinder, Alabama Inmate, 75, Hopes to Dodge Death for an Eighth Time". The New York Times. May 24, 2017. Archived from the original on September 5, 2017. Retrieved September 5, 2017.
  4. ↑ "Zusha Elinson and Beth Reinhard, Effort Expands to Boost Punishment for Police Killers". The Wall Street Journal. June 8, 2017. Archived from the original on September 5, 2017. Retrieved September 5, 2017. (Subscription required (help)).
  5. ↑ "Three States Accounted For 80 Percent Of Executions in 2014". The Huffington Post. Archived from the original on December 20, 2014. Retrieved December 18, 2014.
  6. ↑ Latzer, Barry (October 27, 2010). Death Penalty Cases: Leading U.S. Supreme Court Cases on Capital Punishment. Elsevier. p. 21. ISBN 978-0123820259.
  7. ↑ "1000+ Death Penalty Links". The ClarkCounty Prosecuting Attorney. Retrieved September 5, 2017.
  8. ↑ "List of Projects financed under EIDHR" (PDF). European Commission. Archived from the original on August 11, 2011. Retrieved August 20, 2017.
  9. ↑ "The Death Penalty in 2016: Year End Report" (PDF). Death Penalty Information Centre. Retrieved September 5, 2017.
  10. ↑ "Reports". Death Penalty information Centre. Archived from the original on September 5, 2017. Retrieved September 5, 2017.
  11. ↑ "Innocence and the Death Penalty: Assessing The Danger of Mistaken Executions". Death Penalty Information Centre. October 21, 1993. Archived from the original on September 5, 2017. Retrieved September 5, 2017.
  12. ↑ "Innocence: List of Those Freed From Death Row". Death Penalty Information Centre. Archived from the original on September 5, 2017. Retrieved September 5, 2017.
  13. ↑ "Additional Innocence Information". Death Penalty Information Centre. Archived from the original on September 5, 2017. Retrieved September 5, 2017.
  14. ↑ "Botched Executions". Death Penalty Information Centre. Archived from the original on June 10, 2017. Retrieved July 17, 2017.
  15. ↑ Baze v. Rees oral arguments.
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