Between January and the end of June 2011, there were 25 executions in 9 states. During the same time period last year, there were 29 executions. Of the executions this year, 8 were carried out using the drug sodium thiopental, while 17 involved a new drug, pentobarbital. Earlier in 2011, Hospira Inc., the sole U.S. manufacturer of sodium thiopental, announced that it would no longer manufacture the drug, forcing states to search for foreign sources or alternative drugs for their lethal injections. Alabama, Arizona, Mississippi, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, and South Carolina have used pentobarbital instead of sodium thiopental in their executions in 2011. Ohio is the only one of those 7 states to use pentobarbital as the sole drug in its lethal-injection process. In the first half of 2011, 18 clemencies have been granted, commuting the defendant's death sentence to life without parole. Fifteen of the commutations were in Illinois, where Governor Pat Quinn signed a bill repealing the state's death penalty. The repeal goes into effect today, Juy 1. Seventy-six percent (76%) of the cases resulting in executions so far this year involved the murder of at least 1 white victim, even though generally whites are victims of murder less than 50% of the time.
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 came about because of a series of fortuitous circumstances, but also because of the work of countless attorneys, academics, journalists and activists who took advantage of these developments. The cavalcade of exonerations from death row, including the high-profile release of 
A new electronic book by former journalist Peter Rooney offers an in-depth look at the case of Joseph Burrows, who was exonerated from Illinois's death row in 1996. In Die Free: A True Story of Murder, Betrayal and Miscarried Justice, Rooney explains how Burrows was sentenced to death for the murder of William Dulin based on snitch testimony. He was convicted primarily on the word of Gayle Potter, who recanted her testimony eight years later and admitted to committing the crime herself. According to one review, “Rooney makes it clear his book Die Free isn’t an argument against the death penalty, but simply another example of why such an extreme punishment should be re-evaluated. His points are made clearly and with merit as he details obvious evidence withholding by an over-aggressive district attorney, threats and intimidation of a borderline mentally challenged man, and the old school thoughts of little women versus big, burly men.” Rooney is a former staff writer for the Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette and is currently the director of public affairs at Amherst College. Joe Burrows died at age 56 in 2009. This case, and similar exonerations, led to the abolition of the death penalty in Illinois in 2011. The book is available for 
Charles Hoffman, an assistant defender in the Office of the Illinois State Appellate Defender, recently wrote an op-ed in the Chicago Sun-Times, marking a year since the death penalty was repealed in Illinois. Hoffman, who has argued more than 30 death penalty cases before the Illinois Supreme Court, says that repealing the death penalty was the right choice for the state: “The rightness of that decision is more clear than ever. Violent crime rates have not climbed. The public is no less safe. And the pursuit of justice has been served, not undermined.” He notes that, in the year since doing away with the death penalty, the murder rate in Chicago remains at a 40-year low, and millions of dollars in Illinois’ Capital Litigation Trust Fund have been designated for services to help those affected by past crimes and help prevent future crimes. Hoffman concludes, “Our system of capital punishment was abolished because it was broken beyond repair, infected with racism and inherently arbitrary and prone to mistakes. There is no doubt we’re better off without the death penalty, both morally and fiscally.” Read full op-ed below.
On December 15 an Illinois appellate court reversed Juan Rivera’s (pictured) conviction for a murder committed almost 20 years ago. The case is reminiscent of many in Illinois that led to the state's abolition of the death penalty in 2011. Rivera was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for killing 11-year-old Holly Staker based on a confession after nearly 24 hours of near-constant interrogation. No physical evidence or witnesses conclusively linked him to the crime, and testing of DNA found on the victim, conducted in 2005, excluded him as the source. The reviewing court stated, “After viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, we hold that no rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. Because the State’s evidence was insufficient to establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, we must reverse the conviction of Juan A. Rivera, Jr.” Rivera’s case was highlighted in a recent New York Times Magazine article that noted there have been more than 250 exonerations through DNA testing, and nearly 76% of the original convictions were based on witness misidentification or flawed forensic evidence.
DPIC is pleased to announce the completion of our 
A new biography of Clarence Darrow by John A. Farrell chronicles the life of this famous American lawyer, known for his eloquence in defending unpopular clients and in securing reprieves for those condemned to death. He won life sentences for Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, whose crimes of kidnapping and murder had garnered national attention. He often spoke publicly about his opposition to capital punishment. Darrow had many famous clients during his career, including union leader Eugene Debs in the Pullman strike case, and John Scopes in the famous "Monkey Trial" regarding the teaching of evolution, where he argued against Willam Jennings Bryan. 