A total of seven executions have been scheduled for this week in the United States, with one taking place last night. As states reduce the number of appeals for condemned prisoners and accelerate the pace of executions, experts on the death penalty warn that it is more and more likely that an innocent person may be killed.

Tyrone Gilliam, was executed last night in Baltimore for the 1989 murder of Christine Doerfler. Gilliam’s attorneys have said that his conviction, based largely on his confession, is invalid because at the time he gave it he was suffering from massive head injuries from a car accident. They also said that there is no physical evidence linking Gilliam to the murder. In his last few years of life, Gilliam was an outspoken advocate of the abolition of the death penalty, and he and his family conducted educational campaigns about capital punishment.

Guest:

• Michael Stark, District Coordinator of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty for Maryland, and close friend of Tyrone Gilliam. Call: Campaign to End the Death Penalty at 312.409.7145.