WASHINGTON - June 27 - July 2, 2006 will mark the 30th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Gregg v. Georgia, an historic ruling that upheld newly crafted death penalty statutes and signaled the beginning of the modern era of capital punishment. This milestone presents as an opportunity to examine the application of the death penalty over the past three decades and to test whether the Court’s expectation of a fairer and less arbitrary system of capital punishment has been fulfilled.

As this anniversary approaches, DPIC has compiled a set of resources related to this event, including a timeline of significant death penalty events over the past 30 years and a fact sheet on arbitrariness and the death penalty. The following resources are now available on the Web:

• A timeline of significant death penalty events during the past 30 years

• A fact sheet about the U.S. death penalty

• A fact sheet on arbitrariness and the death penalty

• DPIC’s latest report, “Blind Justice: Juries Deciding Life and Death With Only Half the Truth”

To request additional resources or to schedule an interview with Richard Dieter, DPIC’s Executive Director, call Brenda Bowser Soder at (202) 289-2275 or e-mail her at bbsoder@deathpenaltyinfo.org.

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