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Innocence and the Crisis in the American Death Penalty
A Death Penalty Information Center Report
Written by Richard C. Dieter, Executive Director
Washington, DC
September 2004
Executive Summary
This report catalogs the emergence of innocence as the most important issue in the long-simmering death penalty debate. The sheer number of cases and the pervasive awareness of this trend in the public's consciousness have changed the way capital punishment is perceived around the country. The steady evolution of this issue since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976 has been accelerated in recent years by the development of DNA technology, the new gold standard of forensic investigation. This science, along with a vigorous re-investigation of many cases, has led to the discovery of a growing number of tragic mistakes and freed inmates.
The evidence in this report presents a compelling case for many Americans that the risks associated with capital punishment exceed acceptable bounds. One hundred and sixteen people have been freed from death row after being cleared of their charges, including 16 people in the past 20 months. These inmates cumulatively spent over 1,000 years awaiting their freedom. The pace of exonerations has sharply increased, raising doubts about the reliability of the whole system.
This evidence has produced a dramatic reduction in the use of the death penalty as measured by the steep decline in death sentences around the country. Death sentences have dropped by 50% over the past 5 years. Nearly every state has experienced a significant reduction in death sentencing between the 1990s and the current decade. Many states are recording their lowest death sentencing rates in 30 years, and the number of inmates on death row has declined after steady increases for decades. Even executions have declined. And public support for the death penalty in opinion polls is significantly down from its high point in the 1990s.
But the official government response to the crisis of errors has been tepid at best. Most legislators lag behind the public in changing their perspective on this punishment. Only one state has an official moratorium on executions. Token reforms have been passed in some jurisdictions, but a thorough reinvestigation of the whole death penalty rationale and process has been avoided almost everywhere.
Ultimately, the issue of innocence, grounded in reports such as this, represents a crisis for the death penalty in America. The public's tolerance for sacrificing innocent lives for the sake of maintaining a demonstrably unfair government program with questionable benefit to society is noticeably ebbing. New voices are emerging to challenge the death penalty: judges, law enforcement officials, conservative commentators, and some legislators are discarding the former polarization of the issue as one between criminals and victims. Instead, people are noting that the injustices are often perpetrated by those mantled with the public trust, and that the victims are sometimes those condemned to death.
This is not only a crisis of public confidence but one with constitutional dimensions as well. Some justices, in both legal opinions and public statements, are calling for a new legal analysis to address the challenges posed by so many mistakes in capital cases.
The death penalty may continue to decline in the U.S. Or it may, finally, be subjected to a more searching scrutiny. As examples in this report demonstrate, there is no shortage of proposals regarding the changes needed to secure a more reliable and just system. Yet, it is always easy for the next high-profile crime to overshadow the memory of so many past mistakes. Official inertia remains the biggest obstacle to change. But beyond reform, many are saying that it may be time to acknowledge that this experiment has run its course.
The public perception of the death penalty in the United States has radically changed in recent years. When thinking about crime and punishment, people no longer see only the threatening image of a dangerous criminal convicted of a terrible crime; they also recall the face of the innocent defendant walking into the sunshine of freedom from the confines of death row.
The issue of innocence, and the powerful examples that have thrust this issue into the public's eye, has done more to change the death penalty debate in this country than any other issue. It has slowed the death penalty down at a time when the political climate and the fears of terrorism might have led to a substantial increase in the use of capital punishment. Yet more profound changes, responsive to the enormity of the problems revealed in recent years, have so far eluded the system.
This report catalogs the many new cases of innocence, the reaction of the public to these disturbing developments, and the new challenges that this issue presents to those responsible for the death penalty in the U.S. The report includes:
Virtually everyone is aware of the mistakes that have been made in capital cases. In polls, the public believes that the most tragic of errors has already happened--that innocent people have been executed in recent years. The evidence of near misses, exonerations based on fortuitous circumstances, and the obvious fallibility of the justice system inexorably leads to that conclusion.
But despite the enormity of the problems, legislators have shied away from pausing the death penalty to allow for a thorough reassessment. Capital punishment has very deep roots. It has been used in America for 400 years, and its history goes back still further. Such traditions are not easily displaced. In some jurisdictions, minor attempts are being made to reform the death penalty, perhaps in order to forestall its demise. It is not yet clear how effective these reforms will be or whether the reforms will even be monitored to see if they make a difference. There will be costs associated with these changes and it remains to be seen how much the public is willing to pay for them. However, with the cracks in the system now exposed, and with a heightened demand for the utmost care and precision whenever human life is at stake, many are asking the more basic question of whether the death penalty can realistically be cobbled into conformity with our fundamental principles of justice.
A Thousand Years of Mistakes
By 1997, when the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) released its second report on innocence, [1] the number of exonerations from death row was already accelerating. The annual number of people who had been freed from death row almost doubled from the first report in 1993. During the 20 years from 1973 to 1993, an average of 2.5 inmates were freed from death row each year. From 1993 to 1997, the average jumped to almost 5 per year. The average has increased even further since then.
The inmates who have been freed spent a total of over 1000 years between sentencing and exoneration. The average exoneration took 9 years.
Public Response
In any other area involving the government's failure to adequately protect against the loss of innocent lives, one might have expected an immediate halt to the process and Congressional hearings to get to the bottom of the problem. While one state has halted executions and emptied its death row, most state legislatures have taken a far more timid approach to this crisis. In many ways, the public response has been stronger than the official reaction. New voices have emerged to challenge the death penalty and public opinion has begun to shift away from capital punishment, both in opinion polls and in the jury box.
New Voices
Not only have stories regarding freed death row inmates occupied the front pages of newspapers across the country and been shown on the national news, but they have also made their way into the popular culture. Movies such as The Green Mile with Tom Hanks and True Crime with Clint Eastwood, and the non-fiction play The Exonerated have explored this topic with powerful stories. Fictional books such as Scott Turow's Reversible Errors, and non-fiction accounts of freed death row inmates in Parade Magazine and many other sources have reached tens of millions of people. Popular television shows such as The Practice, West Wing and Law and Order have also dealt with the subject.
The prominence of this issue has led some people to change their minds about the death penalty and others to speak out more publicly. Supreme Court Justices have weighed in with their personal concerns about the danger of executing an innocent person and have called upon the states to address this crisis. In a speech in 2001, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said there were "serious questions" about whether the death penalty is fairly administered in the U.S. Noting the number of death row inmates who have been exonerated in recent years, O'Connor stated, "If statistics are any indication, the system may well be allowing some innocent defendants to be executed." [2]
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg pointed to inadequate representation as part of the problem, and even endorsed the idea of a moratorium on executions. "People who are well represented at trial do not get the death penalty," said Ginsburg. "I have yet to see a death case among the dozens coming to the Supreme Court on eve-of-execution stay applications in which the defendant was well represented at trial." [3]
And most recently, Justice John Paul Stevens concluded that "this country would be much better off if we did not have capital punishment," partly because of the danger of error in capital convictions. [4]
Former Missouri Supreme Court Justice Charles B. Blackmar recently called the death penalty "severely flawed" because of the risks it takes with innocent lives. He saw abolition as the only solution:
The thought of executing an innocent person is repulsive. This is so even though the accused person may be a habitual criminal guilty of numerous crimes against persons and property. Yet few have the benefit of diligent services. . . . The process is so fatally flawed that the only solution lies in abolishing capital punishment. Most nations with which we share a common heritage have already taken this step. The relatives of the victim have the right to demand swift and sure punishment, but they do not have the right to demand death when the process is so severely flawed. [5]
Conservative spokesmen, such as columnist George Will and radio personality Oliver North, have had second thoughts about the death penalty because of what has been revealed about innocent persons. Will wrote about his reaction to the book Actual Innocence by Barry Scheck:
You will not soon read a more frightening book. It is a catalog of appalling miscarriages of justice, some of them nearly lethal. Their cumulative weight compels the conclusion that many innocent people are in prison, and some innocent people have been executed. [6]
State Senator Stephen F. Lynch of Massachusetts, who regularly supported the death penalty for many years, also changed his position and now supports a moratorium on executions because of the spate of wrongful convictions: "Let me put it this way," Lynch said. "I would be reckless to see that evidence before me and not take a step back." [9]
Public Opinion and Death Sentencing
In addition to the emergence of new voices, there has also been a shift in public opinion. Opinion polls have shown a very high awareness of the mistakes that have been made in capital cases and a strong support for reform. Over 90% of the public believes that innocent people have been sentenced to death in recent years, and over 70% in a recent Gallup Poll thought that innocent people have already been executed—most likely in Texas. [10] Over 90% support allowing those in prison to have access to DNA testing in order to demonstrate their innocence.
Support for the death penalty peaked at 80% in 1994. By early 2001, that support had dropped to 65%. [11] Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, some polls have shown a small rise in general support for the death penalty, while other polls indicate that the lower level of support measured in recent years has remained steady. For example, an ABC/Washington Post poll in 2003, recorded support for the death penalty at 64%. [12]
But even the Gallup Poll, which found a rise in death penalty support after 2001, also showed a rise in support for the alternative sentence of life-without-parole (46% supported LWOP in 2004 compared to only 37% in 2000, while support for the death penalty in this comparison dropped to 50%). There now exists a close split within the American public between the death penalty and life-without-parole sentences that has grown even narrower since the attacks of September 11. Six years ago in 1997, the gap was significantly wider (only 27% supported LWOP, while 61% preferred the death penalty) (see graph on p.6). Moreover, the majority of the public now supports a temporary halt to all executions. [13]
Concerns about the death penalty may also be contributing to the dramatic drop in death sentences over the past few years. Capital sentencing has declined by 50% compared to its rate in the 1990s. [14] Almost every state and every region of the country have shown a marked decline in sentencing. Even though the public continues to support capital punishment in theory, they are pulling back on imposing this extreme sanction. (See graphs below).
Key Events
Many significant events marked the transition from the expanding death penalty of the early 1990s to its attrition in the present decade. The American Bar Association, meeting in Texas in 1997, responded to the growing concern about the reliability of the death penalty by announcing a historic resolution calling for a national moratorium on all executions, in part to "minimize the risk that innocent persons may be executed." [15] Over 2,000 organizations and governmental bodies, including numerous bar associations and county councils, have responded by similarly calling for a moratorium. [16]
Yet still more revelations about mistakes in capital cases continued to emerge. In particular, numerous capital convictions in Illinois that had been fiercely defended by the state for years began to crumble. The case of Ronald Jones was typical of the reversals that have eroded public confidence in the death penalty system.
The Conference and the exonerations spurred investigations by the media and legislative committees to explore why so many mistakes were being made and what could be done to prevent future errors. Investigative pieces by the Chicago Tribune and other papers exposed the critical causes of these pervasive errors: woefully inadequate representation, misconduct by prosecutors and police, and a system that allowed jail-house snitches and paid informants to manufacture evidence that evaporated under closer scrutiny.
Executions Halted
100th Exoneration
The year 2002 produced more important developments on the innocence issue. In the same month that the Illinois Commission on Capital Punishment released its long-awaited report on revamping the death penalty (see recommendations in section VI), Ray Krone became the 100th person exonerated after being sentenced to death. He walked out of prison in Arizona after DNA evidence clearly pointed to another suspect for the murder that had put him on death row in 1992. Bogus bite-mark evidence had convinced a jury that Krone had murdered a young woman, but other experts later agreed that no match was possible. Fortunately, new DNA testing was available to dispel all doubts, and Krone was freed.
In 2003, more people were exonerated and freed from death row than in any year since the death penalty was reinstated. Gov. Ryan in Illinois became convinced that the system that had produced so many errors could not be trusted to determine life and death verdicts, even for the guilty. He emptied death row, granting 4 pardons and 167 commutations for those with death sentences.
Other Developments
State Studies
In response to the increasing number of exonerations, some states, the media and private organizations conducted many reviews of the death penalty system. The Chicago Tribune's investigation in Illinois found that "at least 33 death row inmates had been represented at trial by an attorney who has since been disbarred or suspended; at least 35 black death row inmates had been convicted or condemned by an all-white jury; and about half of the state's capital cases had been reversed for a new trial or sentencing hearing." [20] In addition, at least 46 death row inmates were convicted or condemned after prosecutors used testimony from jailhouse informants. [21]
Illinois was certainly not alone among the states with serious problems in their capital punishment systems:
• Of the 151 Tennessee death sentences reviewed on appeal since 1977, half were overturned, primarily because of trial errors or inadequate representation.
Thirteen official commissions studied problems in the administration of the death penalty in Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, North Carolina, Indiana, Kansas, Nebraska, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Virginia. The federal government also undertook a review of its capital prosecutions and found racial and geographical disparities. Top officials declared the federal findings to be "troubling" and "disturbing." [31]
In addition to the disparities in prosecutions, the federal death penalty was not immune from the taint of wrongful convictions, despite its claims of quality representation and due process. Ronald Chandler, the first person to receive the federal death penalty after it was reinstated in 1988, temporarily had his death sentence overturned because of ineffective representation by his lawyer. The death sentence was restored by a higher court, but by that time the government's chief witness had recanted his testimony against Chandler and took full responsibility for the murder. Faced with these doubts of Chandler's guilt, on his last day in office President Bill Clinton commuted Chandler's sentence to life in prison. [32]
A Broken System
About half of the 50 states have enacted legislation to allow evidence from DNA testing to be considered after the normal appeals in capital cases have concluded. Some states have begun the process of improving their systems of representation in capital cases. In the U.S. Congress, the Innocence Protection Act (now included in S. 1700, the "Advancing Justice Through DNA Technology Act") was introduced in 2000 to encourage all states to enact comprehensive DNA legislation and to provide effective representation in death penalty cases. However, despite receiving bi-partisan support, it was still languishing in the Senate as of August 2004.
* * *
One of the nation's most poignant cases was that of Frank Lee Smith in Florida, the state that has had more exonerations of those on death row than any other but has resisted all calls for a moratorium or even a study into why these mistakes keep happening.
Smith had always maintained his innocence of the murder that put him on death row. Since his alleged crime also involved a rape, it was a prime candidate for DNA testing. But the state of Florida resisted his requests for testing. Smith died from cancer while awaiting the legal skirmishes over his fate. When DNA testing was performed posthumously, it excluded Smith as the perpetrator. The prosecution offered a belated apology, but Smith was never granted the freedom that he deserved, and he died under society's worst condemnation for a crime he did not commit. [36]
* * *
To adequately tell all the stories of those who have been belatedly exonerated and freed from death row would take an entire book. In total, they spent 1,042 years between their death sentences and their exonerations. Below are summaries regarding the inmates who have been freed in 2004 and 2003. A complete listing of the 116 cases and summaries of the cases from 1997 (the year of DPIC's previous report) to 2002 appear in the Appendix.
Inmates Exonerated and Freed from Death Row Since DPIC's 1997 Report
Cases are listed in reverse chronological order. The numbering of the cases may be different from previous postings because of changes in the listing of earlier cases.
Illinois Pardons
On January 10, 2003, Illinois Governor George Ryan granted four pardons based on innocence. The men pardoned, Aaron Patterson, Madison Hobley, Leroy Orange and Stanley Howard, were all members of the "Death Row 10," a group of Illinois death row prisoners who claimed that they were the victims of police torture. The four pardoned men maintained that their confessions were given only after they were beaten, had guns pointed at them, were subjected to electric shock, or were nearly suffocated with typewriter covers placed over their heads. In 2002, a special prosecutor was named to conduct a broad inquiry into the allegations from more than 60 suspects who, like the Death Row 10, claimed that they were tortured by former Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge or his detectives at the Burnside Area Violent Crimes headquarters in Chicago during the 1980s. Jon Burge was fired by the Chicago Police Board in 1993 for his role in the torture of another prisoner. Governor Ryan examined the cases of all the Illinois death row inmates and selected these four for pardons based on their coerced confessions and other information. [38]
IV. Innocence Exposes Broader Problems
The power of the innocence issue is that it throws open a window onto all capital cases as it sheds light on the fallibility of the justice system. People have always known that the system can make mistakes. But the numbers of people being released, the scientific credibility lent by DNA testing, the high media profile of many of these cases, along with the fact that an execution looms in the background, have all contributed to the greater impact of the innocence issue.
No one supports the execution of an innocent person. But these cases also raise the specter of doubt about a much larger class of capital cases: those where the defendant may be guilty, but about whom it is impossible to be certain. For the people freed from death row, the jury's vote to convict had been unanimous and beyond a reasonable doubt, the appeals' courts often found no reversible errors, and typically the governors had shown no inclination to mercy. Yet DNA testing, or the persistent work of journalism students or volunteer lawyers, uncovered something that was entirely missed before and which turned the case completely around.
These same concerns about possible innocence prompted Governor Ryan to commute all the death sentences in Illinois. Although he did not believe all those on death row were innocent, his confidence in the system that had pronounced their guilt and sentences had been shattered. Commutation to life sentences was the only choice acceptable to him in light of the many deficiencies that had been demonstrated.
The Death Penalty in a Scientific Age
In the past, a certain degree of error was assumed and accepted. Without scientific confirmation, it was hard to conclusively prove that a mistake had been made. In death cases before the modern era, the issue of innocence did not arise often because people were executed quickly. There was little time for new evidence to emerge while the case was still open, and little science to check the evidence that did come to light. Once the defendant was executed, the case was closed, evidence was destroyed, lawyers moved on, and courts had little reason to reconsider the guilt of an executed prisoner.
But today the standards are different. We expect a higher degree of precision, especially when lives are at stake. When the space shuttle Columbia blew up no one suggested that we should just chalk this tragic loss of life up to the inevitable dangers of exploration. Rather, a thorough investigation was undertaken to find the root cause of the disaster, and to require whatever changes necessary be made so that this mistake would not happen again.
Similarly, each American life that is lost in a terrorist attack or recent war is carefully inscribed on a monument. If one life can be saved by rescue, no cost is spared. A death penalty that has the tragic consequence of sacrificing some innocent lives is not tolerated as it once was.
This may explain why jurors are apparently becoming more reluctant to impose the death penalty. In the absence of reliable remedies from legislatures or the courts, the public is taking matters into its own hands. As noted above, death sentences across the country have dropped by 50% in the past couple years, and many states such as Florida, North Carolina, and California are reporting their lowest number of new entrants to death row in 20 years.
From 1995 to 1999, the country averaged about 300 death sentences per year. By 2001, that number had plunged to 163, and it dropped even more in the next two years. [39] (See chart.) In the federal system, during one recent period, 20 of the 21 death penalty prosecutions resulted in sentences less than death. [40] Jurors appear to be choosing the less risky alternative of life-without-parole sentences instead of the death penalty. It is true that the number of murders has also decreased. But that decline has been over the last decade, while the drop in death sentences is more recent. Moreover, during the same period, crime in general has also declined and yet the overall prison population has increased, including the number of persons imprisoned for murder. [41] Death sentences might have followed the same increases prompted by a "tough on crime" mentality, but instead they declined.
As the issue of innocence became prominent for the American public, those who feared that the death penalty was being weakened reacted with attacks on the very notion of persons on death row being innocent. Critics asserted that people on the list of exonerated death row inmates were not really innocent, despite the removal of all charges against them. In light of these criticisms, it is important to clarify the meaning of innocence in our society and to restate the criteria for DPIC's innocence list.
Since DPIC assumed a primary role in keeping this list, the only cases that have been added are those involving former death row inmates who have:
a. Been acquitted of all charges related to the crime that placed them on death row, orCases are included in DPIC's list based on objective criteria. These criteria differ markedly from subjective judgments about who is "actually innocent." For example, some commentators have suggested that if the original prosecutor still thinks the defendant is "guilty," even though the defendant has been unanimously acquitted, then such a person should be excluded from the list. But DPIC's list avoids such personal suspicions and relies instead on the traditional source given the authority to separate guilt from innocence—our justice system. Our principal role has been to assemble these cases. We avoid subjective
judgments or a hierarchy of innocence.
In Florida, Innocence Doesn't Exist
Florida has had more exonerations than any other state. As a token response to this development, a state commission examined some of these cases and came to the correct conclusion that the justice system does not prove innocence: "Of these 23 cases, none were found 'innocent,' even when acquitted, because no such verdict exists. A defendant is found guilty or not guilty, never innocent." [44]
However, the commission then went on to the shocking conclusion that none of the Florida former inmates were innocent and that for almost all of them their guilt should not be doubted: "The guilt of only four defendants, however, was ever truly doubted," their report concluded. [45] This was said despite the fact that 8 of the 23 had all charges dropped by the prosecution, 10 were acquitted at re-trial, and 2 were pardoned. This represents a clear departure from our country's long-standing commitment to the principle of being innocent until proven guilty.
One of the commissioners ironically claimed (while he himself was campaigning for Florida Attorney General) that the innocence list was politically motivated. Moreover, he came to an even more sweeping conclusion, unsubstantiated by the report, regarding all of those on Florida's current death row: "Number one, the system is not broken," he said. "Number two, there are no innocent people on death row. And Number three, the people who use these 23 cases as a reason to call for a moratorium are making a political statement." [46] There had been no commission review of the cases of people currently on death row. This kind of unfounded extrapolation blinds the state to the true extent of the problems in its midst.
Other Critics
A criticism of the innocence list in the National Review revealed the subjective standards held by those seeking to downplay the significance of innocence: "Most of the people who refer to the list clearly have no idea that many of the 'innocents' on it are probably guilty," one critic stated. [47]
Probably guilty is a personal assessment with no reference to an objective system. Such a judgment may exist in the mind of the original prosecutor or a magazine editor, but its vagueness and arbitrary quality make it particularly subject to political motivations and biases. It is an example of the "tunnel vision" that prevents the discovery of the real offender in many of these cases. It certainly should not be used to brand those who have been cleared and freed by the only objective system we have.
Refinements to the List
As with any area of research, new information helps refine previous findings. DPIC's original construction of the innocence list was made in conjunction with the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights, which issued the first report as a Staff Report in 1993. That list included a small number of cases that did not completely fulfill the criteria that DPIC alone has used in adding to the innocence list. In these cases, although there was powerful evidence of the defendant's innocence, and although they were freed into society after being on death row, there remained a conviction for some lesser offense. We will no longer include this handful of cases, despite their original inclusion in the Staff Report mentioned above.
Accordingly, the following cases have been excluded from DPIC's list, despite having appeared in the 1993 staff report: Henry Drake (GA 1987); John Henry Knapp (AZ 1987); William Jent and Ernest Miller (FL 1988); Jerry Bigelow (CA 1988); Jesse Keith Brown (SC 1989); and Patrick Croy (CA 1990).
Prominent Cases, But Not Included on DPIC's Innocence List
It should be noted that others have compiled different lists of exonerated individuals who were freed from death row, and those lists may include cases that DPIC has not. The strength of the innocence claims in many of these other cases is powerful and underscores the fact that the list in this report is probably an understatement of the true extent of the problem. Nevertheless, in keeping with our objective criteria, the following cases have never been included on DPIC's list:
Descriptions of these cases may be found in the Appendix.
In many of the above examples, defendants were pressured into pleading guilty to a lesser charge to escape the threat of the death penalty at a retrial and to finally gain their freedom. Under that type of pressure, many people have falsely confessed to things they did not do. These cases demonstrate the grey area that often surrounds decisions in capital cases. In many instances, it is impossible to be certain of either guilt or innocence, rendering the death sentence to be an extreme and risky punishment.
Is DNA The Solution?
The era of DNA testing has not ushered in a fool-proof criminal justice system. It is not true that the problems of wrongful convictions are in the past and will not happen anymore because technology can now precisely determine guilt. Nor is it true that the death penalty can proceed unchecked under the assumption that all the inmates on death row have had ample opportunity for DNA testing.
To begin with, exonerations from death row have not declined in recent years. In fact, the number of people that were freed in 2003 was more than in any year since death sentencing resumed in 1973. Twelve people were cleared of their original offense in 2003. Moreover, the average number of exonerations has steadily increased in each quarter of the total years covered in this report: 1973-2004 (see chart on p. 2).
Pre-Trial Reliability
But what of the new cases coming into the system? Shouldn't DNA testing ensure that only the guilty are being convicted and sentenced to death? This is not the case because most murders do not involve the exchange of bodily materials containing DNA evidence. A single shooting where no blood of the victim appears on the perpetrator and the defendant drives away in his own car is not likely to be a DNA case. And yet, the same kind of errors that have arisen in DNA cases -- faulty eyewitnesses, unreliable jailhouse snitch testimony, coerced confessions, withheld evidence of other suspects -- can just as easily arise in non-DNA cases. Wrongful convictions will continue to occur as long as our criminal justice system utilizes human actors. Exonerations due to DNA testing only serve to underscore the risk of mistake in every case.
When newly tested DNA evidence is presented after an inmate has been convicted and sentenced to death, it is usually checked and rechecked before that inmate is ever set free. However, it appears that the same reliability cannot be attributed to the pre-trial DNA testing that can often result in a conviction and a death sentence. Recent scandals from crime labs in many parts of the country have exposed the risk of wrongful convictions that shoddy forensic work can bring.
The performance of pre-trial DNA testing is not always a reliable source of forensic information. If evidence is contaminated at the scene of the crime, if the police are not skilled in the collection of such evidence, if the police lab that performs the testing is unqualified to render reliable results, or if the state's expert is incompetent or dishonest, then evidence presented under the veil of scientific certainty becomes the very source of misinformation leading to mistake.
Recent developments in Harris County (Houston), Texas are perhaps the most shocking example of such dereliction. [48] More executions occur in cases from Harris County than from most other states in the country. The DNA testing in the crime lab there has proven so unreliable that all of its results are being stricken from the national database of DNA profiles. The roof at the lab has been leaking for years, contaminating critical evidence. The mayor of Houston has called for a moratorium on all executions in cases from that city, and he has decided not to seek re-election in the wake of the scandal. Two grand juries have been convened to look into the scandal. And it appears that other forms of forensic evidence, such as ballistics tests, have likewise been mishandled by the lab.
From Elephant Cages to DNA Labs
An investigation by the Houston Chronicle into personnel assigned to the lab revealed:
Does the Innocence Issue Render the Death Penalty Unconstitutional?
It has always been a paramount concern of the criminal justice system to avoid the conviction of an innocent person. Generally, the emergence of convincing evidence demonstrating a prisoner's innocence should result in his or her release from prison, either through the action of the courts or a pardon by the governor. Death penalty cases, however, raise the disturbing possibility that the new evidence may come too late. Once an execution has occurred, the door on a case is closed and sealed. This prospect raises legal concerns that are unique to capital cases.
• What should a court do if new evidence arises in a capital case that falls short of being convincing but which raises reasonable doubts about the defendant's guilt? In particular, what should be done when this evidence comes to light after the normal appeals process has run its course? Does the system's interest in finality trump the risk that an innocent person might be executed? Should more time and tests be allowed, even if they delay an execution, so that tentative evidence might be turned into convincing evidence?
• Apart from the evidence in a particular case, can the accumulation of mistakes in capital cases reach a critical mass so that proceeding with any death penalty prosecution becomes an untenable danger to innocent human life? Or, to put the question differently, is it constitutional to deprive someone of life, given that the risk of error is so great?
An opinion from Judge Mark Wolf in Massachusetts did not go so far in its legal conclusion, but raised some of the same concerns:
This court agrees that "executing the innocent is inconsistent with the Constitution." The open issues in this case are whether the [Federal Death Penalty Act] FDPA will inevitably result in the execution of innocent individuals and, if so, whether this renders the statute unconstitutional, and inapplicable to [the defendant] Sampson because it is an invalid law. For the reasons described below, the court finds that: the FDPA will inevitably result in the execution of innocent individuals; there is not now, however, a proper basis to declare the FDPA unconstitutional for this reason; and, therefore, it is not necessary to decide Sampson's claim that he has a right not to be tried under an unconstitutional statute. [55]
Judge Michael Ponsor presided over the federal capital trial of Kristen Gilbert in Massachusetts. Gilbert was not sentenced to death, but the prospect of such a sentence led the judge to write in the Boston Globe:
The experience left me with one unavoidable conclusion: that a legal regime relying on the death penalty will inevitably execute innocent people - not too often, one hopes, but undoubtedly sometimes. Mistakes will be made because it is simply not possible to do something this difficult perfectly, all the time. Any honest proponent of capital punishment must face this fact. [56]
Finally, a fourth federal judge, Judge William Sessions of Vermont, ruled that the federal death penalty was unconstitutional because the sentencing process had too few safeguards to ensure against improper sentences. [57] None of these rulings or opinions has the power to overturn the entire death penalty process, or even the federal death penalty in the U.S. But they are indicative of a growing concern among prominent jurists that has been echoed by Supreme Court Justices, Senators, governors, and leading professional organizations such as the American Bar Association. [58]
In its 1997 report on innocence, DPIC noted that recent legislative changes in the death penalty system were likely to increase the risk of executing the innocent. Many states were cutting back on appeals. The federal death penalty was expanded and two new states (NY and KS) were added to the death penalty column. The passage of the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 and the defunding in 1995 of the death penalty Resource Centers that assisted with appeals around the country meant that new evidence of innocence could easily be ignored or ruled inadmissible on procedural grounds.
Fortunately, the emergence of DNA testing has dramatically shown the danger of such cutbacks. The problem of innocence and the death penalty has now been addressed by numerous organizations and committees, and pivotal recommendations have been proposed. Most notably, the blue-ribbon commission appointed by Governor George Ryan in Illinois studied the problems in that state over a two-year period and released a series of 85 recommendations in 2003. Among their proposals for change were the following:
About 20 of these recommendations were passed by the legislature and have now been adopted by the state. [60] Death sentences have dropped considerably, but the critical step of reducing the broad scope of the state's capital punishment law was not adopted.
On a national level, the Constitution Project, which is based at Georgetown University's Public Policy Institute and which seeks consensus solutions to difficult legal and constitutional issues, also convened a blue-ribbon study commission of judges, former prosecutors and other national figures to address the crisis surrounding the death penalty. Their recommendations are broader, and would have a dramatic effect if adopted across the country.
The recommendations of the Project's report, Mandatory Justice, that most directly relate to the issue of innocence, include the following:
Unfortunately, the widespread adoption of these reforms is still only on the distant horizon. The same can be said for the recommendations for reform of the system of representation in capital cases issued by the American Bar Association. A year after the guidelines were overwhelmingly approved and issued, no state had adopted the ABA's standards. [62]
In the U.S. Congress, the proposed Innocence Protection Act (now part of the "Advancing Justice Through DNA Technology Act") appears to be the best current vehicle for bringing about national change to both uncover existing mistakes and prevent future ones. However, even this basic reform has met stiff political opposition and its future is uncertain.
Although some states have adopted legislation allowing DNA testing, and some have imposed special standards for lawyers to be eligible to represent defendants in capital cases [63], so far no state has truly responded to the seriousness and urgency that these cases of innocence demand. Far from a few scattered mistakes, there have been frequent and continuing discoveries that many of the people slated for execution should not have been convicted of any crime at all. The death penalty is not meeting the burden that the issue of innocence presents. Fixing this system will not be quick and easy; it will not be cheap; and it is not clear that a satisfactory degree of certainty will ever be achieved.
Perhaps a far more limited punishment applied only to the most extreme cases, would have a better accuracy rate than one exoneration for every 8 people executed. Death penalty supporters such as Judge Alex Kozinski of the U.S. Court of Appeals have endorsed such a narrowing of the death penalty system [64], but no state has cut back on their broad list of eligible cases.
A rarely applied and highly selective death penalty might still be subject to the arbitrariness, bias, and human fallibility that have always plagued this punishment. But the current system serves no one well. It is a system in which nearly every murder is eligible for the death penalty, and, as a result, an overwhelmed system does most cases poorly rather than a few cases reliably.
The accumulated revelations in recent years are more than sufficient in the majority of peoples' minds to require a moratorium on all executions. The innocence cases in this report contradict the notion that the death penalty is a cost-free panacea for crime. The high number of critical mistakes in this life-and-death matter represents a crisis in our system of justice. The first step in addressing this crisis is to at least acknowledge that it exists. A thorough, system-wide review followed by fundamental changes in the death penalty system would seem to be a minimal intermediate response. A complete resolution, though, may be beyond human capability.
References for the cases that have been added in this report are included within the case descriptions. Permission for the use of the photographs was obtained from the sources accompanying the photos.
[1] DPIC's first report on innocence, Innocence and the Death Penalty: Assessing the Danger of Mistaken Executions, was released as a Staff Report by Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights, Committee on the Judiciary, 103 Cong., 1st. Sess. (1993).
[2] "O'Connor Questions Death Penalty," Associated Press, N.Y. Times on the Web, July 2, 2001 (speech to Minnesota Women Lawyers group).
[3] See AP News, "Ginsburg Backs Ending Death Penalty," Associated Press, April 9, 2001 (quoting Justice Ginsburg).
[4] "Stevens Faults Death Penalty But Says It's Constitutional," Associated Press, May 13, 2004 (washingtonpost.com).
[5] St. Petersburg Times, February 15, 2003, letter to the editor from Justice Blackmar.
[6] George F. Will, "Innocent on Death Row," Washington Post, April 4, 2000 (op-ed).
[7] "Excerpts from Ryan's Speech," Chicago Tribune, June 12, 2003, at 16 (announcing blanket clemencies in Illinois).
[8] Del. Vincent F. Callahan Jr., (R-McLean) "Virginia needs a moratorium on the death penalty," The Roanoke Times, January 31, 2002 (op-ed).
[9] Yvonne Abraham, "Reversal on Death Penalty--Lynch Now Voices His Opposition, Boston Globe, Aug. 4, 2001.
[10] Gallup Poll, Feb. 24, 2000 (innocent people sentenced to death); Gallup Poll, June 30, 2000 (innocent people executed in Texas); Gallup News Service, March 30, 2000 (DNA testing).
[11] Gallup Press Release, June 2, 2004.
[12] ABCNews.com, January 24, 2003.
[13] Gallup Press Release, May 19, 2003.
[14] See Bureau of Justice Statistics, Capital Punishment 2002 (pub. 2003).
[15] American Bar Association Resolution calling for a moratorium on executions was submitted by the Section on Individual Rights and Responsibilities (1997) (the resolution was passed by the ABA's House of Delegates on Feb. 3, 1997).
[16] For a list or organizations supporting the moratorium, see Moratorium Now, Equal Justice USA, http://www.quixote.org/ej.
[17] D. Johnson, "12th Death Row Inmate in Illinois is Cleared," N.Y. Times, May 19, 1999.
[18] S. Mills & K. Armstrong, "Yet Another Death Row Inmate Cleared," Chicago Tribune, May 18, 1999; Associated Press, May 18, 1999.
[19] See, e.g., D. Terry, "Survivors Make the Case Against Death Row," N.Y. Times, Nov. 16, 1998, at A12 (with picture of exonerated on stage).
[20] S. Mills & K. Armstrong, "Governor to Halt Executions," Chicago Tribune, Jan. 30, 2000, at p.1 (summarizing the investigation).
[21] Id.
[22] D. Wagner, et al., "DNA Frees Arizona Inmate," Arizona Republic, April 9, 2002.
[23] J. Shiffman, The Tennessean, July 22-29, 2001 (5-part series on the death penalty).
[24] L. Olsen, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, August 6-8, 2001 (series on inadequacy of death penalty defense).
[25] See F. Green, "Study Critical of Death Penalty," Richmond Times-Dispatch, Dec. 11, 2001.
[26] See Asbury Park Press, Aug. 13, 2001.
[27] See J. Boger and I. Unah, "Race and the Death Penalty in North Carolina An Empirical Analysis: 1993-1997" (Univ. of North Carolina) (released by the Common Sense Foundation, April 2001).
[28] Prof. Raymond Paternoster, et al., AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF MARYLAND'S DEATH SENTENCING SYSTEM WITH RESPECT TO THE INFLUENCE OF RACE AND LEGAL JURISDICTION, Univ. of Maryland (Jan. 7, 2003).
[29] "Committee on Racial and Gender Bias in the Justice System," published by Pennsylvania Supreme Court (March 2003) (calling for a moratorium on the death penalty).
[30] Texas Defender Service, "Lethal Indifference: The Fatal Combination of Incompetent Attorneys and Unaccountable Courts in Texas Death Penalty Appeals," (December 2002).
[31] See R. Bonner, "Pervasive Disparities Found in the Federal Death Penalty," N.Y. Times, Sept. 12, 2000.
[32] See William J. Clinton, "My Reasons for the Pardons," N.Y. Times, Feb. 18, 2001 (op-ed).
[33] See James S. Liebman, et al., Capital Attrition: Error Rates in Capital Cases, 1973-1995, 78 Texas Law Review 1839 (2000).
[34] S. Turow, "Clemency without Clarity," New York Times, January 17, 2003 (op-ed).
[35] See P. Belluck, "Convict Freed After 16 Years on Death Row," New York Times, February 6, 1999; A. Bluth, "Man Freed from Death Row Is Exonerated in 2 Murders," N.Y. Times, March 12, 1999.
[36] See S. Freedberg, "DNA Clears Inmate Too Late," St. Petersburg Times, Dec. 15, 2000.
[37] H. Dutton, "Harold Dutton: Let's Talk About Abolishing Texas' Death Penalty," Dallas Morning News, January 13, 2003 (op-ed).
[38] See S. Mills & M. Possley, "Ryan to Pardon 4 on Death Row," Chicago Tribune, January 10, 2003.
[39] Bureau of Justice Statistics, Capital Punishment 2002 (2003); DPIC's determination of death sentences for 2003, based on the NAACP Legal Defense Fund's "Death Row USA," was 143.
[40] See "Death Penalty Foes Rap Ashcroft—Seen to be Expanding Capital Punishment," Boston Globe, Sept. 20, 2003; see also A. Liptak, "Juries Reject Death Penalty in Nearly All Federal Trials," N.Y. Times, June 15, 2003.
[41] See Bureau of Justice Statistics, Prisoners in 2002 & Prisoners in 2001.
[42] See S. Mills, "Ford Heights 4 Inquiry Clears Cops, Prosecutors," Chicago Tribune, Aug. 22, 2003, at p.1.
[43] See J. Dao, "In Same Case, DNA Clears Convict and Finds Supsect," N.Y. Times, Sept. 6, 2003; Baltimore Sun, May 22, 2004 (noting apology).
[44] Florida Commission on Capital Cases, Report June 20, 2002, at p.3 (the Commission improperly attributed two cases to the DPIC list that were never included in our list: Spaziano and Jacobs).
[45] Id.
[46] Associated Press, "State Senator Says Review of Cases Finds No Innocence," June 20, 2002 (emphasis added).
[47] R. Ponnuru, National Review, Oct. 1, 2002; see also W. Campbell, "Critique of DPIC List," presentation by the author (2002), at p.10 (also using subjective criteria—questioning cases "whose guilt is debatable to say the least and whom it is hard to believe that a majority of neutral observers would conclude were innocent").
[48] See, e.g., N. Madigan, "Houston's Troubled DNA Crime Lab Faces Growing Scrutiny," N.Y. Times, Feb. 9, 2003.
[49] See L. Olsen, "DNA Lab Analysts Unqualified," Houston Chronicle, September 8, 2003.
[50] See S. Cohen, D. Hastings, "For 110 inmates freed by DNA tests, true freedom remains elusive," Associated Press, May 28, 2002 (Gilchrist's testimony refuted by the FBI).
[51] See, e.g., T. Maier, "Inside the DNA Labs," Insight Magazine (Washington Times), June 10-23, 2003, at 18.
[52] See A. Liptak, "Prosecutions Are a Focus in Houston DNA Scandal," N.Y. Times, June 9, 2003.
[53] See United States v. Quinones, 205 F. Supp. 2d 256 (S.D.N.Y. 2002), rev'd by 313 F.3d 49 (2d Cir. 2002).
[54] Id.
[55] U.S. District Judge Wolf's opinion in United States v. Sampson is quoted in New York Times, August 12, 2003 (internal citation omitted) (emphasis added); see A. Liptak, "U.S. Judge Sees Growing Signs That Innocent Are Executed," N.Y. Times, Aug. 12, 2003.
[56] U.S. District Judge Ponsor's remarks following the federal capital trial of Kristen Gilbert are in Boston Globe, July 8, 2001 (op-ed) (emphasis added).
[57] United States v. Fell, No. 2:01-CR-12-01 (Sessions, J., D. Vt. 2002).
[58] See, e.g., "Stevens Faults Death Penalty But Says It's Constitutional," Associated Press, May 13, 2004 (Washingtonpost.com).
[59] Report of the Commission on Capital Punishment, Illinois, April 2002.
[60] See "Illinois Reforms System for Death Penalty," Associated Press, in Washington Post, Nov. 20, 2003.
[61] The Constitution Project, Mandatory Justice: Eighteen Reforms to the Death Penalty (2001).
[62] See L. Post, "Adopted Nowhere: ABA death penalty guidelines languish – opponents point to cost as supporters argue for better representation," National Law Journal, January 5, 2004.
[63] See, e.g., B. Rankin, "Georgia Indigent Defense Bill Ok'd," Atlanta Journal-Constitution, March 15, 2004; "State Supreme Court Takes Steps to Even Scales of Justice," Seattle-Post Intelligencer, June 7, 2002.
[64] See Alex Kozinski and Sean Gallagher, "For an honest death penalty," N.Y. Times, Mar. 8, 1995.
Additional Case Descriptions
The following are descriptions of the remaining cases added to DPIC's Innocence List since the publication of our previous Innocence Report in 1997. Case descriptions from 2004 and 2003 appear in the body of this current report.
Earlier Cases Added
Occasionally, DPIC is informed of an older case where an exoneration occurred years ago. Retrials resulting in acquittals are not always reported, especially on a national level. Hence, we periodically add earlier cases to this list, thereby changing the numbering of the cases. The following three cases have been added to the list, using the same criteria regarding innocence as above. They are assigned a number based on the year of the inmate's exoneration.
Prominent Cases, But Not Included on DPIC's Innocence List
Others have compiled different lists of exonerated individuals who were freed from death row, and those lists may include cases that DPIC has not. The strength of the innocence claims in many of these other cases is powerful and underscores the fact that the list in this report is probably an understatement of the true extent of the problem. Nevertheless, in keeping with our objective criteria, the following cases have never been included on DPIC's list:
The Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) is a non-profit organization serving the media and the public with analysis and information on issues concerning capital punishment. The Center provides in-depth reports, issues press releases, conducts briefings for journalists, and serves as a resource to those working on this issue. The Center is funded through the generosity of individual donors and foundations, including the J. Roderick MacArthur Foundation, the Open Society Institute, and the European Community. The views expressed herein are those of DPIC and can therefore in no way be taken to reflect the official opinion of the European Commission or other donors.
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If you were disconnected from the world for the past several months, you wouldn't know that Microsoft is going to release the next version of their operating system for personal computers, called Windows 8. Let me rephrase that: Microsoft is going to release an operating system for mobile, highly-connected devices, with touch input at the front-and-center, and along with that operating system, it is also providing an upgrade to their existing Windows 7 operating system.
The look and feel of Windows is very different from earlier versions of Windows, and as a result there has been a lot of uncertainty and (unfair) judgement about it being circulated in the tech press. Instead of writing yet another article about how this whole thing is confusing, my goal here is to make it simple for someone who wants to know more about "The Big Launch" that Microsoft is undertaking at the end of October.
Windows 8
First and foremost, there is Windows 8. It is the operating system that will ship on most PCs and it is also something that you can upgrade from virtually any previous Windows version. This operating system runs the new "Start Screen" with Live Tiles, and will allow you to install apps (yes, there are now Windows Apps) from the Windows Store. Additionally, Windows 8 has a "desktop" environment that may seem familiar to users of Windows, especially Windows 7/Vista. Here, you can install applications outside of the Windows Store, for example CutePDF and Winrar. There is no restriction on what you can install in Windows 8 "desktop" environment. For apps on the other hand, unless you work at a company that supports it, or if you are a developer with the correct settings, you cannot install them from anywhere else except the Windows Store.
Windows RT
Windows RT is the radical new operating sytem that Microsoft is introducing for the first time along with Windows 8. It will not ship as standalone software, and instead, it will only be available as part of devices that ship with this operating system. Think of it as the software that runs your appliances like a DVD player or your car navigation system. Windows RT also has the same "Start Screen" as Windows 8 and you can install apps from the Windows Store just like Windows 8. It also has a "desktop" environment but you cannot install anything there. Yes, you read that right. Microsoft has locked the desktop environment so customers cannot install any software on the device except the apps you can get from the Windows Store.
Microsoft does ship Windows RT with a version of Office 2013 for free. It is called Office Home & Student 2013 RT which includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. Think of Windows RT as Windows 8 with only the Windows Store Apps along with Office. (Yes, I know there are more "desktop" applications that come with Windows RT, but at a high level, this should suffice.)
All the apps you purchase from the Windows Store will work on Windows RT devices as well as Windows 8 devices.
Windows Phone 8
Microsoft also makes operating system software for phones, called Windows Phone. The next revision of this software, called Windows Phone 8, is also due to be released at the end of October. Windows Phone 8 is built on the same core as Windows 8 so application developers can reuse their logic between a Windows 8 app and a Windows Phone 8 app.
Although the apps are not the same across Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8, a lot of app developers are using the cloud to power native experiences across multiple platforms and devices. Evernote, for example, will have a Windows 8 app as well as a Windows Phone 8 app (in addition to other platforms), both delivering native experiences for the screen sizes, keeping most of the data and logic in the cloud so it is easily portable.
From a "devices" perspective, it is important to keep Windows Phone 8 in mind, but if the discussion is about "computers", you only need to consider Windows 8 and Windows RT.
Windows takeaways
Having discussed the software at a high level, here's the quick overview of Windows:
- Windows RT is the new mobile operating system built for increasingly popular simpler devices like tablets and slates. It comes bundled with Office and the only way to get more apps is via the Windows Store. It cannot be bought in the store, it comes pre-installed with devices like tablets and hybrids.
- Windows 8 is Windows RT combined with the ability to install any application that you can buy off the shelf today. It is built for more powerful computers, but retains all the advantages of mobility-focused Windows RT. It introduces many upgrades in that "desktop" environment over its predecessor Windows 7 and is generally installable on any PC that runs Windows 7 today.
Form factors
The second complexity that will come in terms of increased choice is via the increased form factors of devices that are going to hit the market. Windows 8 being a touch-focused operating system, has led OEMs to ship many PCs with touch capabilities. So in addition to the simple desktop, laptop and tablet form factors, we have touch-screen laptop, devices with detachable screens/keyboards, laptops that convert to slate with a flip or a twist, and touchscreen all-in-ones. Additionally, PC makers as well as component makers have promised much better trackpad/touchpad technology in new devices and Windows 8 gesture support.
You don't need to worry too much about the increased choice – just know that you can take advantage of touch, via direct touch on the screen or via indirect touch on the touchpad on laptops or separate trackpads that will ship with PCs, especially all-in-ones.
What will be tricky to decide and can only be done after trying a few PCs, are the convertible PCs. An Ultrabook-sized laptop, i.e., thin and light, that flips completely to convert to a touch slate, or a similar laptop where the screen detaches and becomes a standalone slate. I happen to prefer the convertible laptop (specifically, the Lenovo IdeaPad YOGA) but those detachables also sound quite interesting. Again, since we have not seen these form factors before, it is best to try them out before making a decision. (Yes, I know these existed in the Tablet PC era, but remember, Windows XP and even Windows 7 were not touch-first like Windows 8 is, and those PCs were thick and heavy. Besides, there was no app ecosystem like the Windows Store to enhance functionality in the PC.)
Of course, if you end up buying a pure slate form factor, Windows 8 and Windows RT both support Bluetooth so you can always slap an external keyboard and a mouse if you don't see yourself always needing them.
Final thoughts
Windows 8 is dramatically different from Windows 7. It also adds the mobile OS Windows RT. It is bound to create snap judgements from tech press used to "old Windows way of doing things" or those enamoured with anything that Apple produces. Having used Windows 8 over the past few months constantly on a very old PC with keyboard and mouse, I can assure you that for most people, it is going to be a significant ugprade over whatever else they have been using. It is fast, it is efficient and with the move towards an app-centric world, its functionality will constantly get enhanced by third-party developers building innovative apps and distributing them through the Windows Store. It will add some learning curve, especially for folks with muscle memory, but as we have seen with touch OS like iPhone/iPad's iOS, it is much easier to learn navigating via touch than navigating via keyboard and mouse.
Don't base your opinion on what's being written by tech writers, especially those who have not really used the operating system. Certainly they have not used it on "Windows 8 hardware" so their opinions are either based on conjecture, or fear of change, or simply with a motive to get more pageviews because that pays the bills. I am sorry I had to create this disclaimer but having read the stuff that has been written about Windows 8, I can't help but shake my head.
Having said all that, I must say, Microsoft's efforts to educate what is Windows 8 and how it is different from Windows RT and which form factors are available and how to choose, has been abysmal. They may be able to train Microsoft Store employees in the last week before launch but how about the many other stores that are going to sell Windows 8 PCs and Windows RT devices? How are those employees going to guide the customers in the right direction? It would be a pity if customers see a beautiful ad on the TV showing "Windows 8″, go the store and happen to find a Windows RT tablet to be the cheapest, and go home and find out that they cannot use Quicken or Photoshop on it.
Windows 8 is too good for Microsoft to throw it off the rails like this. Hope they do enough in the "last mile" to guide customers in the right direction. They can't rely on people like yours truly to keep demystifying and simplifying for them.
Are you sold on Windows 8? Do you plan to get a Windows RT device? Let me know in the comments!

subset: commoncrawl


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The Center for Women, Politics & Policy at Portland State University celebrated a decade of service at its 7th Annual Women's Leadership Luncheon at the Portland Art Museum Thursday, Oct. 3. More than 500 people attended the event.
Five accomplished women leaders received the annual Women Leaders of Oregon Award at the luncheon: Oregon Cow Creek Tribal Leader Sue Shaffer, Cheryl Ramberg-Ford, Ferguson Wellman Vice President Lori Flexer, Hon. Darleen Ortega, and Oregon University System Interim Chancellor Melody Rose.
Since 2003, when the organization was established, the Center has provided nearly 400 emerging women leaders with direct training and mentorship and 30,000 Oregon children with the opportunity to pursue their dream of leadership through educational materials and community programming.
The Center, which began as the National Education for Women's (NEW) Leadership Oregon program, was started by Melody Rose. Then a professor in PSU's political science department, Rose saw that women were significantly underrepresented in leadership roles. She started NEW Leadership Oregon as a residential leadership training program that introduces college women to opportunities for leadership.
It expanded and became the Center for Women, Politics & Policy in 2004. Current executive director Sunny Petit said she is proud of the wide reach the Center has on the state after a decade of service. It includes diverse leadership programs for girls through Teens Lead; NEW Leadership Oregon; a political women's archive with curated digital exhibits; educational resources highlighting women's achievements in history; teaching tools; and an academic speaker series.
From highlighting women leaders in Oregon's history to the Center's life-changing leadership programs and educational resources (including an Oregon Women Firsts poster which has been sent to nearly all public/private schools in the state), the Center lives by its mission to illuminate the past, inspire the present and invest in our future.


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I came across a recent paper from the Tropsha group that discusses the issue of modelability – that is, can a dataset (represented as a set of computed descriptors and an experimental endpoint) be reliably modeled. Obviously the definition of reliable is key here and the authors focus on a cross-validated classification accuracy as the measure of reliability. Furthermore they focus on binary classification. This leads to a simple definition of modelability – for each data point, identify whether it's nearest neighbor is in the same class as the data point. Then, the ratio of number of observations whose nearest neighbor is in the same activity class to the number observations in that activity class, summed over all classes gives the MODI score. Essentially this is a statement on linear separability within a given representation.
The authors then go show a pretty good correlation between the MODI scores over a number of datasets and their classification accuracy. But this leads to the question – if one has a dataset and associated modeling tools, why compute the MODI? The authors state
we suggest that MODI is a simple characteristic that can be easily computed for any dataset at the onset of any QSAR investigation
I'm not being rigorous here, but I suspect for smaller datasets the time requirements for MODI calculations is pretty similar to building the models themselves and for very large datasets MODI calculations may take longer (due to the requirement of a distance matrix calculation – though this could be alleviated using ANN or LSH). In other words – just build the model!
Another issue is the relation between MODI and SVM classification accuracy. The key feature of SVMs is that they apply the kernel trick to transform the input dataset into a higher dimensional space that (hopefully) allows for better separability. As a result MODI calculated on the input dataset should not necessarily be related to the transformed dataset that is actually operated on by the SVM. In other words a dataset with poor MODI could be well modeled by an SVM using an appropriate kernel.
The paper, by definition, doesn't say anything about what model would be best for a given dataset. Furthermore, it's important to realize that every dataset can be perfectly predicted using a sufficiently complex model. This is also known as an overfit model. The MODI approach to modelability avoids this by considering a cross-validated accuracy measure.
One application of MODI that does come to mind is for feature selection – identify a descriptor subset that leads to a predictive model. This is justified by the observed correlation between the MODI scores and the observed classification rates and would avoid having to test feature subsets with the modeling algorithm itself. An alternative application (as pointed out by the authors) is to identify subsets of the data that exhibit a good MODI score, thus leading to a local QSAR model.
More generally, it would be interesting to extend the concept to regression models. Intuitively, a dataset that is continuous in a given representation should have a better modelability than one that is discontinuous. This is exactly the scenario that can be captured using the activity landscape approach. Sometime back I looked at characterizing the roughness of an activity landscape using SALI and applied it to the feature selection problem – being able to correlate such a measure to predictive accuracy of models built on those datasets could allow one to address modelability (and more specifically, what level of continuity should a landscape present to be modelable) in general.


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Below is a great new development published on the Ponoko blog that will make 3D Printing easier.
I also have a plugin called Sculpteo. Its a 3D printing service that plugs right in to SketchUp.
I haven't used their service yet but hope to give it a go soon.. 3D printing is so beautifully geeky its bound to become the norm.


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First posted here on the 15th April 2009.
Where were you on April 15th 1989? I was at Clarence Park in St Albans, for a Vauxhall-Opel League Premier Division match between St Albans City and Barking. It was a beautiful spring day, but there was little excitement in the air. City were just safe from relegation, whilst Barking were mid-table. The season was winding down like a car running out of petrol, and the atmosphere subdued. Most of the crowd – myself included – were there out of habit, because we couldn't think of anything else to do on a Saturday afternoon. The first radio reports started to come through after about ten minutes of the match. A man standing just behiind me on the terrace had a transistor radio pressed to his ear. "The crowd's on the pitch at the Liverpool match", he said, rolling his eyes. Several others rolled their eyes, too. We were only four years from the riots at Luton and Birmingham City. The idea of a pitch invasion wasn't as far out of the question then as it is now.
Something about this hastily formed opinion, however, didn't seem to hang right. For one thing, Liverpool supporters had an excellent reputation. It also seemed odd that anyone would invade the pitch five minutes into an FA Cup semi-final. Something, I suspected almost immediately, was going wrong at Hillsborough. The news filtered through as the half wore on. Men sat, ashen faced on the terraces, scarcely able to take into the enormity of what was happening a couple of hundred miles north in Sheffield. Dean Austin scored the only goal of the match – a late penalty – but, by then, the majority of the crowd had left. I got home at about 5.45 and stood, slack-jawed, in front of the television in my parents' sitting room as the BBC's evening news report struggled to report a story that, on that very day itself, didn't make any sense.
Twenty years on, we know several versions of what happened that day. We know the official line – a scandalous pack of lies that was so intent of preservation that it sought to defame the memory of those that had died and those that had saved other lives on the same day. We know the first media version, which shamefully smeared those present that day with a pack of lies created by the odious Kelvin MacKenzie, a man of so little nobility and dignity that he even retracted the apology that he did make in 1993 and has refused to rectify this since. The Sun continues to be largely boycotted in Liverpool to this day. We also, however, know the testimonies of those that were there that day, a patchwork of stories that went towards the ITV drama "Hillsborough", in which writer Jimmy McGovern (who had himself fallen into the trap of painting the victims of the disaster in a negative way in an episode of the detective series "Cracker") told the true story – or as near to the true story as the authorities would allow.
The specifics of the day are now common knowledge. The loss of police control outside the stadium which led to a gate being opened, forcing fans to rush into the central pens behind the goal. The collapse of a crush barrier, and the match kicking off with many people still oblivious to the fact that people were dying in front of them. Hillsborough remains British football's worst disaster, a crossroads at which the game and its supporters had to decide whether this was all worth it, and finally came to the realisation that attitudes within the game had to change. Hillsborough had form for this sort of dangerous crushing. At the 1981 FA Cup semi-final between Spurs and Wolverhampton Wanderers, a similar crush had resulted in thirty-eight injuries and the crush barriers in the Leppings Lane end of the stadium were later found to not comply with the Guide to Safety at Sports Grounds 1986, which was the result of an urgent enquiry after the Valley Parade fire of 1985.
Part of the problem was an institutional one within football. When crowd trouble started to become more commonplace in the 1960s and 1970s, the clubs' reaction was not to bring their facilities up to date and spend a bit of time looking at how proper stewarding or policing could diffuse problematic situations. Their reaction was to put huge fences up. The fences became a symbol. On the one hand, they demonstrated that the clubs didn't really give a damn what happened on the terraces as long as it didn't spill onto the pitch. On the other, they demonstrated the barely-disguised contempt with which everybody seemed to treat supporters, treating match-going supporters little better than one would treat an animal in a zoo. Nick Hornby noted in "Fever Pitch" that supporters assumed – as paying customers might be entitled to – that there was a "Plan B". That, in the event of an emergency the authorities had plans in place to ensure the safety of supporters. Highbury, Hornby's home stadium and the stadium with the biggest capacity in England after Wembley at the time, was barred from hosting FA Cup semi-finals in 1983 after Arsenal refused to put fences around the pitch.
The truth of the matter, and this is borne out by the fact that South Yorkshire Police lied during a private prosecution brought against David Duckinfield and Bernard Osbourne, police officers responsible for Hillsborough on the day of the disaster. The sad, sorry truth of the matter is that, to this day, no-one responsible for safety on that day has been successully brought to task for their negligence on April 15th, 1989. Our game entered a limbo state which ended with the formation of the Premier League in 1992. Policing and stewarding in Britain are now regarded as amongst the best in the world, though there remains an overzealousness which concerns many on match days. To this extent, the Hillsborough disaster was the end of one era and the start of another. On this day, however, such matters are irrelevant. On the twenty-second anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster, we should all take a moment to remember the unneccessary loss of 96 lives on that bright spring day in April 1989.
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Fortunately my husband shares my passion for books and whilst he browsed the architecture, art and gardening sections of the store, I headed straight for the history and local history area. It wasn't long before my pile of 'must haves' began to grow. I discovered a book about the history of the Kenmore Presbyterian Church which I had attended in Brisbane as a teenager and in which I was married; a book about the English Lakes District written by William Wordsworth, for a friend (whose ancestor was Wordsworth's housekeeper and who had a child whose paternity is as yet unknown.. so you can imagine there interesting speculation in the family), and a copy of Cicero's speech in his famous first trial, for my Roman history obsessed son (who may have to brush up on his Latin since that is the language in which the book is written... may I remind you that it is the thought that counts!).
The most fascinating stories related to my husband's MacDonald ancestor, Charles MacDonald of Ord. Otta F Swire claims that he was called 'Old Ord'. We knew that Charles had fought for the Crown in the West Indies, Ireland and at the battle of Waterloo, ironically two generations after his grandfather had lost his lands after he stood against the Crown. What was particularly interesting to us, however, was this author's claim that my husband's g g g grandfather, Charles real 'title to fame in Skye .. is chiefly the Ord Palm.'


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No one ever said dating was easy. But this is certainly not your parents' dating scene.
Continue Reading Below
Millennials have redefined dating as online social networks change the paradigm for how people look and find love. Gone are the days of private dates and long courting phone calls, young adults are instead firing off quick texts and going on group dates.
The tough economic times have changed the dating landscape for young adults, but experts also pin the blame on something else for millennials' dating drama: Hollywood.
Elena Sheppard, culture editor at PolicyMic, says the romantic comedy films that saturated theaters in the early 2000s set unrealistic dating expectations for the real world.
"We grew up on all of those 90s 2000s rom-coms starring Kate Hudson working at an ad agency, going on dates with guys who have it together, its 1000x not what we anticipated."
Case in point: in the 2003 film "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days" Hudson plays a successful magazine writer in New York City who falls for Matthew McConaughey's character of a smooth-talking advertising executive.
Both portrayed characters around the same age as today's millennials, with solid jobs and spacious apartments in one of the most expensive cities in the world. But here's the reality most millennials are current living: weak hiring prospects, lower wages, massive student debt and living at home with mom and dad.
All this, experts say, is changing the dating game. The current dating scene includes group dating, trolling the internet for free or cheap events to take dates and an endless array of options of other eager singles to choose from via casual texts and late-night hookups.
And Sheppard says finding people who are serious about dating, and have it together, may prove challenging.
"It's almost an embarrassment of riches situation [when dating]," she says. "People just don't want to commit...What happens is that no one ever really chooses one person. It allows for a much more casual dating environment and expectations."
What Living With Mom Means for Your Dating Life
Tough economic times are forcing more millennials to also become part of the "boomerang" generation, meaning they've come home to live with mom and dad after college, which can hurt those looking for love.
"The growing up process is taking longer. Living with your parents does put a weird pin in dating, it's hard to go on a date with someone and say, 'I live at home.' It feels like a failure, and we are conditioned to think it is."
And beyond the living situation, Morley Winograd, co-author of Millennial Makeover says the generation has struggled to establish itself in a struggling economy.
"The great recession and difficulty in getting jobs means these people see less opportunity to settle down or establish themselves in the workplace. They also carry an unprecedented level of student debt. This impacts the ability to settle down and have a family—so they are saying, 'I can afford to wait.'"
The New Online Dating Scene
Economic uncertainty has forced many young adults to postpone many major life events, including buying a home, getting married and starting a family, which also changes their approach to dating.
24-year-old Jake says he is in no rush to settle down. He lives and works in New York City and uses many different free dating apps. He has gone on several dates coordinated by Grouper, an online social club that sets up drinks between two groups of friends for $20 a person, which covers the first round and reservations.
From there, it's up to those at the table to sort things out.
"I didn't feel the responsibility that the guy would pay—we offered, but there is definitely not as much pressure as there is on a one-on-one date," he says.
Grouper founder Michael Waxman puts it best: "they're just being casual," he says of millennials' dating approach.
"We think keeping it casual leads to the highest likelihood of success, regardless of what you are looking for," he says. "You also know what you will get—if you don't like the other people, you have only committed to one drink to enjoy with your friends. You don't have to take time and money to go out with someone you just met at a bar or on the internet."
And money, he says, is key. "Grouper takes the pressure off of the awkward dance of who will pick up the tab. Every person is in it for themselves." While Waxman declined to give specifics, he says the site has sold "hundreds of thousands" of drinks in the past two years.
Another new site dominated by no-strings-attached millennials is Tinder. The free online social network shows consumers pictures of fellow users who are located in close proximity. If a user likes another's photo, and the other user agrees, they can message one another and chat.
"It emulates the way the real world works," says Tinder CMO and cofounder Justin Mateen. "When you meet someone at a bar or coffee shop, you look for commonalities when you speak to them. Mutual interests, friends—we put those things at the front of the card."
The site free price tag helps make it popular, but that doesn't make users' less serious, Mateen says, just "less desperate."
And he says the sites' stats show its users are not just looking to hook up.
"The stats show they take it seriously—we have had 30 marriage proposals since January of this year," he says. "Even when people initially sign up, all it takes is one good conversation to take it seriously."
Is Instant Gratification the Problem?
The millennial issue may not be a lack of commitment, but too many choices, says Hannah Seligson , Gen Y expert and author of New Girl on the Job: Advice from the Trenches.
"It's infinite options," Seligson says. "[The dating pool] used to be the people you went to high school and college with, but now it's like there's always something better around the corner. You can just go on Tinder again the next day. It makes dating and people disposable."
But Mateen argues it's not so much about instant gratification, but lessening the pressure.
"The casual nature makes it less scary and removes the stigma associated with dating. Our generation [millennials] looks at dating in a different way, and all we want to do is increase our odds of meeting the right person."


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"Desperate" news: Final season, no spinoff and guess who's probably returning?
Beverly Hills, Calif. | Sunday morning, ABC president Paul Lee confirmed to journalists gathered for the annual Television Critics Association summer press tour that this would, indeed, be the final season of "Desperate Housewives." Lee called the series "iconic" and one that he was proud of. "Housewives" creator and showrunner Marc Cherry also was on hand, briefly, to add his thoughts on why it was time to say goodbye. "I think the only thing harder than creating a hit show… Read More »


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Popular styles
Icons for telling someone that something is really slow or super fast. For example: an aerial platform can be set into "slow" or "fast" movement. Iconifying this means that a switch can be set into snail/rabbit mode, or turtle/hare mode. I have seen it on several machines, so it must be a "defacto standard". Other use for turtle/rabbit combination is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tortoise_and_the_Hare Snail
Tortoise/Turtle icon:
Aerial platform:
Hare/Rabbit icon: [already present in icons8 set, see \Animals\rabbit\]
Maybe it is better when the rabbit is depicted in a running state, so that it depicts fast movement. Is it possible to combine these icons:
a) the already present rabbit icon in the icons8 set (that's a nice icon!)
b) the rabbit in running mode:
c) adding racing stripes to the icon, just like it is done with the "run_command" icon:
The snail and turtle/rabbit/hare icon can be used both for depicting "slowness".


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Get Started
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- Then sign in to your account, click on the eGifts link, and send your eGift when youre ready! Its that simple!
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The best part is its a truly last minute gift, because the emailed eGift announcement is sent within minutes!


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Dr. Kripalani Maya
Doctor Detail :
Dr. Kripalani Maya is a Psychologist in Pedder Road, Mumbai
Speciality Alias
Counselor (incl. Child, Women)
Jaslok Hospital And Medical Research Institute, 15, Dr.G.Deshmukh Marg, Pedder Road, Mumbai, Maharashtra - 400026
Phone No.: 02266573333, 02266573010.
Share your genuine experiences and reviews about the doctor!
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McDuffies wrote:I'll go for it.
Whatever happened to The Neko by the way? Slowpoke here, I just found that he wiped his comic from the internets.
McDuffies wrote:I'll go for it.
RPin wrote:I tried not to take the comic into a single direction, but I didn't want something like having the character staring at the sky or talking to a cliff like the original Srdjan mentioned, since monologues are easy modo.
I guess I could make something else if people really are interested in this game. I won't do my own, but if Srdjan or anyone else makes more of these, I can try.
[AlmightyPyro] wrote:I really don't know what to think of these Fuzzle McDuffies posts. So in confused conformation, I too will say, Fuzzle McDuffies.
ourmangaisbetter wrote:fuzzle McDuffies from me too! This is my second post to hopefully gain access to my siteadmin!
McDuffies wrote:ourmangaisbetter wrote:fuzzle McDuffies from me too! This is my second post to hopefully gain access to my siteadmin!
Oh, that explains it. Most of us aren't very regular in Help forum so we didn't know.
Here it is.
Well, proceed.
Can't Log Into Site Admin wrote:Edit by STrRedWolf: A clarification here. You need to post twice, not once. The forum software is a bit of a stickler to boot. So, say "Hello!" over in General Discussion, and fuzzle McDuffies in Off Topic.
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest


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13 I write fthese things to you who gbelieve in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.
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Jn 20:31
Jn 1:12


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There's been a lot of talk lately about the quantified self movement, where people gather and share data with tools like the Nike Fuelband and Fitbit.
But the issue with quantified self tools is, while they're great for tracking what your body is doing, they're not that great for actual change, Silicon Valley entrepreneur and investor Dave Asprey tells Business Insider.
Still, Asprey considers himself part of the quantified self movement.
"I desperately want this knowledge but I want to use the knowledge more quickly than I can consciously," Asprey says.
That's why Asprey has spent about $300,000 to make himself smarter and healthier through what he calls "biohacking," which is all about training your brain and your body using technology.
How It All Started
When Asprey was in his mid-twenties, he weighed about 300 pounds and despite being a successful entrepreneur, having made $6 million from selling his company Exodus Communications when he was 26, his brain was starting to not work very well.
"I worked out all the time, I ate low calories, I did all the stuff I was supposed to do, as a Type A hard-worker, and it didn't work," Asprey says. "And I had this idea that maybe some days where I felt like I really was a zombie, maybe I actually was a zombie and I would measure it."
So he started playing FreeCell, a Solitaire-based card game, to see how his performance would change. He found that on some days, it would take him ten minutes to play and on other days, only one or two minutes.
"So suddenly I had an external metric to help me understand my performance and it occurred to me that I had control of this and that there was something causing it and that I needed to know what it was," Asprey says.
That launched Asprey on his path to upgrade himself.
On Biohacking
One of Asprey's favorite technologies for training the brain is HeartMath's heart rate variablity trainer called emWave2, which helps you maintain your focus and attention, achieve better sleep, and regulate your emotions.
Asprey has also used a variety of supplements and smart drugs to enhance his brain function. Some people look at them as cheating, Asprey says, but they're simply a way to improve your brain function and be healthier.
"These aren't technologies to cheat or to be less human, they're technologies that let your brain do all the things it wants to do anyway, and give you the ability to be, not just a better worker, screw that noise, but give you the ability to be a better person," Asprey says.
Through biohacking, Asprey says he's learned how to "turn on happy" and turn off stress with just one breath. He's even increased his IQ by more than by 20 points, but won't say exactly how much.
"If I was abnormally endowed as a man, I wouldn't disclose that number either," Asprey says. "It is not about how big is yours, it's about how much bigger than it is now can it be."
One technique that works really well for increasing your IQ is neuro-feedback training, which is when you hook up electrodes to your head and use them to get feedback about your brain activity, Asprey says.
"There's a particular form of this, that gives you the same brain state of someone who spent 20 years doing zen meditation and its shown in a study to raise your IQ by 12 points," Asprey says. "That's a pretty expensive program to do. That's a $15,000 investment, but when you're looking at $1,200 per IQ point, it's not that expensive."
Going On A Strict Orgasm Diet
Asprey even put himself on a strict orgasm diet last year, where he wouldn't let himself orgasm more than once every eight days. While on the diet, Asprey would also track his levels of happiness, energy, and life in general by plotting a number from 1 to 10 every day on a chart.
Asprey found that when he had less frequent orgasms, his satisfaction with life went up and his relationship with his wife improved.
"That's why the quantified self is cool because big data tells us things about our biology that are just not obvious," Asprey says. "I would've bet a hundred bucks before I ran the experiment that, 'I'm pretty sure if I have sex all the time and have an orgasm all the time, I'll be happiest,' but that's not the case."


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Target ignored a request for a more thorough review of security on its point-of-sale systems two months before a hacker stole 40 million credit card numbers from the retailer, the Wall Street Journal reports:
At least one analyst at the Minneapolis-based retailer wanted to do a more thorough security review of its payment system, a request that at least initially was brushed off, the people said. The move followed memos distributed last spring and summer by the federal government and private research firms on the emergence of new types of malicious computer code targeting payment terminals, a former employee said.
It is not clear whether Target eventually did the security review before the theft.
The hackers appear to have gained access by successfully "phishing" for data from one of Target's heating, ventilation and air conditioning vendor companies, according to Brian Krebs, whose reporting has led the way on this story. Phishing is the act of sending a bogus but legit-looking email requesting something like password information from a user. Email malware can be used to send messages to everyone in a company; it only takes one employee to fall for the trick and security can be breached.
Target may have been chosen for the attack because it maintains a website listing a whole bunch of its vendors' info, according to Krebs — including its HVAC suppliers:
A simple Google search turns up Target's Supplier Portal, which includes a wealth of information for new and existing vendors and suppliers about how to interact with the company, submit invoices, etc. That page leads to a separate page of information on Target Facilities Management, which includes a slew of instructions on submitting work orders. That page also includes a link to another set of resources: A Supplier Downloads page that, oddly enough, is little more than a long list of resources for HVAC & refrigeration companies.
Target stored so much info on that site that Krebs was able to name a specific Target employee who had created or edited an Excel spreadsheet of HVAC companies used by Target, simply from a Google search.
Having obtained credentials from the HVAC firm, the hackers were able to access Target's online services for vendors, Krebs says. Target used applications on a cloud-based service, from a company named Ariba. One theory, according to Krebs, is that if the hacker accessed the Ariba cloud using the HVAC credential, they were able to check out anything else Target was running that could be accessed via those credentials:
"I know that the Ariba system has a back end that Target administrators use to maintain the system and provide vendors with login credentials, [and] I would have to speculate that once a vendor logs into the portal they have active access to the server that runs the application," the source said. "Most, if not almost all, internal applications at Target used Active Directory (AD) credentials and I'm sure the Ariba system was no exception. I wouldn't say the vendor had AD credentials but that the internal administrators would use their AD login to access the system from inside. This would mean the sever [sic] had access to the rest of the corporate network in some form or another."
Ariba tells Business Insider this theory is false: "We have not been notified of any involvement of Ariba-managed systems with this incident and our initial internal reviews have confirmed they were not involved." The company also tells us that the apps in its cloud are unconnected to Target's systems.
Target may have been unprepared for what happened next, the Journal hints:
... Several members of Target's cybersecurity team left the company in the months before the hack, according to people familiar with the matter and a search of social media profiles. Many left for more prestigious jobs at other firms, the former employee said.
Correction: This post originally said Ariba was a server. It is not. It is a company that runs cloud-based contract management services. Apologies for the error.


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Bacon and Egg Quesadillas
From: American Egg Board
Quick Facts
Servings: 4
Prep Time: 5 min.
Cook Time: 15 min.
Total: 20 min.
Pepper Jack cheese adds a bit of spice to these breakfast quesadillas.
- 1 cup shredded pepper Jack cheese
- 4 large flour or whole wheat tortillas (10 to 12-inch)
- 4 slices crisp-cooked bacon
- 1/4 cup sliced green onions
- 8 eggs, beaten
- Sprinkle 1/4 of the cheese on one side of each tortilla. Top each with 1 bacon slice and 1 Tbs green onion.
- Coat large, non-stick skillet with cooking spray; heat over medium heat until hot. Pour in eggs. As eggs begin to set, gently pull the eggs across the pan with an inverted turner, forming large soft curds. Continue cooking—pulling, lifting, and folding eggs, until thickened and no visible liquid egg remains. Do not stir constantly.
- Spoon eggs on top of bacon, dividing evenly. Fold tortilla over filling to cover, pressing gently.
- Clean skillet. Coat with cooking spray; heat over medium-low heat until hot. Toast quesadillas, one at a time, just until cheese is melted, 1–2 minutes per side. Cut into wedges.
Nutrition Facts
Calories 390
Calories from Fat 198 (51%)
(33%) Total Fat 22g
(46%) Saturated Fat 9g
Polyunsaturated Fat 2g
Monounsaturated Fat 7g
(135%) Cholesterol 406mg
(31%) Sodium 750mg
(7%) Potassium 248mg
Total Carbohydrate 22g
(13%) Dietary Fiber 3g
Sugars 1g
Sugar Alcohols 0g
(50%) Protein 25g
* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet.
Nutrition facts are calculated by a food expert using nutritional values provided by the USDA for common products used as recipe ingredients. Actual nutritional values may differ depending on the amounts or products used and can be affected by cooking methods.
Copyright © 2019 Healthnotes, Inc. All rights reserved. www.healthnotes.com
Read our healthy recipe definitions.
Learn more about Healthnotes, the company.
The information presented here is for informational purposes only and was created by a team of US–registered dietitians and food experts. Consult your doctor, practitioner, and/or pharmacist for any health problem and before using any supplements, making dietary changes, or before making any changes in prescribed medications. Information expires December 2019.