A new video produced by the American Civil Liberties Union features three North Carolina citizens who believe they were excluded from serving on juries in capital cases because of their race. The video was released in conjunction with the first court challenge brought under North Carolina’s Racial Justice Act. The defendant, Marcus Robinson, is asking his death sentence be commuted to life without parole because potential African-American jurors were struck from his jury at a rate 3.5 times higher than other potential jurors. Laverne Keys (pictured), who was excluded from a capital jury in 1999, believes she was removed because of her race: “It made me feel like I was back in 1960, that racism is still very much alive. It makes you wonder whether all these people are being given a fair trial or given a fair consequence so far as the death penalty,” she said in the video. Denny LeBoeuf, Director of the ACLU Capital Punishment Project, said, “The stories presented in this video make clear that the death penalty system in North Carolina and across the nation is plagued by discrimination. The Racial Justice Act is a crucial means of ensuring that no one is wrongfully executed because of racial bias.” 
A recent editorial in Nebraska's Journal Star urged support for a bill to replace the death penalty with a sentence of life in prison. Among the reasons cited for its position was the risk of executing an innocent person. The editorial noted that advancements in DNA testing have shown the fallibility of the current system: “Seventeen people who were on death row have been set free after DNA testing proved they were wrongly convicted.” The editorial also pointed to more than 250 convictions that have been overturned nationwide because of DNA testing, including the Nebraska defendants known as the "Beatrice Six," who were wrongfully convicted of rape and murder but later exonerated through DNA testing. The paper cautioned against supporting the death penalty on the basis of one horrific case: “[E]ven if the system worked without flaw in that particular case, there can be no guarantee that it will work that way every time. And if the system cannot work without error - as the facts show - then the death penalty cannot be justified. Sooner or later, an innocent person will die at the hands of the state of Nebraska." Read full editorial below.
Tyrone Noling (pictured) is an inmate on Ohio’s death row whose guilt has been called into doubt by a lack of physical evidence, recanting witnesses and refusal by the state to conduct a DNA test. Andrew Cohen, writing in a recent issue of The Atlantic, compared Noling's case to that of Troy Davis, who was executed in Georgia in 2011, despite doubts about his guilt. Noling was convicted of the 1990 murders of an elderly couple in their home. Initially, there was no physical evidence linking him to the crime, and no witnesses against him. When an aggressive investigator took over the case, some witnesses began giving statements against Noling. Cohen reports that all of these witnesses have since recanted their statements, claiming they were pressured by the prosecutor. In 2009, 13 years after the original trial, prosecutors provided defense attorneys with handwritten police notes from the investigations in 1990 in which a witness identified another man as having committed the murders. The state is currently refusing DNA testing of evidence collected from the crime scene that might place this man at the scene of the crime.
DPIC is collecting information on pending legislation related to the death penalty. For example, at least nine states will consider bills to repeal the death penalty in 2012. In California, a coalition called Taxpayers for Justice has been collecting signatures to place a death penalty repeal initiative on the ballot in November. On January 25, the Washington Senate Judiciary Committee held a public hearing on a bill to repeal the death penalty. The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Debbie Regala, cited high costs as a reason for the bill: “We can keep the public safe with putting people in prison for the rest of their life, as opposed to the costly expense of executing them… It's always important and valuable for us to look at public policy and see if it's actually getting us the results that we want. When you're facing an economic crisis, you add an extra lens." Other states considering repeal bills are Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Maryland, Nebraska, and Pennsylvania. A few states, such as New Hampshire, have blls to expand the death penalty.
On January 18, the U.S. Supreme Court (7-2) ordered a new hearing in federal court for Cory Maples, an Alabama death row inmate whose state and federal appeals had been rejected by lower courts because his lawyers quit and missed a critical filing deadline. Writing for six of the Court’s Justices, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg highlighted the poor quality of representation offered by the state in death penalty cases. The opinion stated, “Alabama sets low eligibility requirements for lawyers appointed to represent indigent capital defendants at trial…. Appointed counsel need only be a member of the Alabama bar and have ‘five years’ prior experience in the active practice of criminal law.’ Experience with capital cases is not required.” Justice Ginsburg also noted that Alabama is nearly alone in not guaranteeing representation in post-conviction proceedings, electing instead “to rely on the efforts of well-funded [out-of-state] volunteers.” Finally, the opinion emphasized that appointed counsel in death penalty cases are severely under compensated by the state: “Although death penalty litigation is plainly time intensive, the State capped at $1,000 fees recoverable by capital defense attorneys for out-of- court work. Even today, court-appointed attorneys receive only $70 per hour.” The Court finally noted that "On occasion, some prisoners sentenced to death receive no postconviction representation at all." Maples's underlying claim, which he was prevented from appealing because his absent lawyers missed the deadline, was that he received ineffective representation at trial. Neither of his trial counsel had ever tried the penalty phase of a capital case.From DPIC
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More Resources A list of special resources on the death penalty from DPIC.
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©2012 Death Penalty Information Center
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More Resources A list of special resources on the death penalty from DPIC.
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