Discussions With DPIC

Discussions With DPIC

Published: Sep 07, 2018

Keelah Williams, assis­tant pro­fes­sor of psy­chol­o­gy at Hamilton College in New York, speaks with DPIC exec­u­tive direc­tor Robert Dunham about her research on the death penal­ty and resource scarci­ty — a con­cept from evo­lu­tion­ary psy­chol­o­gy that stud­ies how peo­ple react to social con­di­tions in an envi­ron­ment with limited…

Discussions With DPIC

Published: Aug 01, 2018

H.E. Miller, Jr. and Bradley MacLean, authors of a recent study on the appli­ca­tion of Tennessee’s death penal­ty (https://​death​penal​ty​in​fo​.org/​n​e​w​s​/​s​t​u​d​y​-​t​h​e​-​d​e​a​t​h​-​p​e​n​a​l​t​y​-​i​n​-​t​e​n​n​e​s​s​e​e​-​i​s​-​a​-​c​r​u​e​l​-​l​o​ttery), join DPIC’s Anne Holsinger to dis­cuss the find­ings from their arti­cle, Tennessee’s Death Penalty Lottery. Miller and MacLean exam­ined whether death sen­tences and exe­cu­tions in Tennessee are influ­enced by arbi­trary fac­tors like geog­ra­phy, race, and qual­i­ty of rep­re­sen­ta­tion. The application…

Discussions With DPIC

Published: Jun 18, 2018

Harvard Law Professor Carol Steiker, co-author of the high­ly acclaimed book, Courting Death: The Supreme Court and Capital Punishment (https://​death​penal​ty​in​fo​.org/​n​e​w​s​/​b​o​o​k​s​-​c​o​u​r​t​i​n​g​-​d​e​a​t​h​-​t​h​e​-​s​u​p​r​e​m​e​-​c​o​u​r​t​-​a​n​d​-​c​a​p​i​t​a​l​-​p​u​n​i​s​hment), joins DPIC’s Robin Konrad for a provoca­tive dis­cus­sion of the past and future of America’s death penal­ty. Professor Steiker, who served as a clerk for Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, takes us inside the walls of the court for insights on the justices’…

Discussions With DPIC

Published: May 29, 2018

New York Times Pulitzer Prize win­ning colum­nist Nicholas Kristof used the pow­er of his pen to focus nation­al atten­tion on the trou­bling case of California death-row pris­on­er, Kevin Cooper and to urge Governor Jerry Brown to autho­rize DNA test­ing that could resolve out­stand­ing issues of Cooper’s guilt or inno­cence. Kristof’s May 20 col­umn in the Sunday Times asked: Was Kevin Cooper Framed for Murder? Mr. Kristof joins DPIC Executive Director Robert Dunham to answer that ques­tion and to discuss…

Discussions With DPIC

Published: Apr 30, 2018

Alfred Dewayne Brown was wrong­ly con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in 2005 in Harris County, Texas, for the mur­der of a police offi­cer. Brian Stolarz, attor­ney and author of the recent nov­el Grace and Justice on Death Row, rep­re­sent­ed Brown in his post-con­vic­tion appeals and, in 2015, won his free­dom. In this pod­cast, Mr. Stolarz speaks with DPIC’s Robin Konrad about the legal issues in Brown’s case, dis­cussing the cul­ture of con­vic­tion and the pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct that led to Brown’s…

Discussions With DPIC

Published: Mar 30, 2018

Stephen B. Bright, the for­mer President of the Southern Center for Human Rights, dis­cuss­es the ongo­ing prob­lem of racial dis­crim­i­na­tion in jury selec­tion in death-penal­ty cas­es — an issue he has argued three times in the U.S. Supreme Court. He speaks with DPIC’s Anne Holsinger about the most recent of those cas­es, Foster v. Chatman, in which the Court grant­ed Mr. Foster a new tri­al as a result of inten­tion­al dis­crim­i­na­tion by Columbus, Georgia pros­e­cu­tors. He explains how the prosecutors’…

Discussions With DPIC

Published: Jan 17, 2018

Lawyer Thomas Carver joins Robin Konrad, DPIC’s Director of Research and Special Projects, to dis­cuss the case of his client, Ulysses Jones, a ter­mi­nal­ly ill fed­er­al pris­on­er who was charged with cap­i­tal mur­der in Springfield, Missouri. Carver, who has been prac­tic­ing law in Missouri for over forty years, explains what hap­pened in his client’s case, how he and his team avoid­ed a death sen­tence for their client, and what this case says about broad­er death-penal­ty issues in Missouri and the…

Discussions With DPIC

Published: Nov 30, 2017

In 2016, both the U.S. Supreme Court and the Florida Supreme Court struck down Florida’s death-sen­tenc­ing statute. Since then, the Florida courts and leg­is­la­ture have been fig­ur­ing out how to apply those deci­sions to the near­ly 400 con­demned pris­on­ers on the state’s death row. Executive Director Robert Dunham inter­views Karen Gottlieb, the Co-Director of the Florida Center for Capital Representation at Florida International University, who dis­cuss­es the court cas­es and what has hap­pened in…

Discussions With DPIC

Published: Nov 07, 2017

Robin Konrad, DPIC’s Director of Research and Special Projects, inter­views University of Virginia law pro­fes­sor Brandon Garrett about his new book End of Its Rope: How Killing the Death Penalty Can Revive Criminal Justice. Professor Garrett researched and ana­lyzed all the death sen­tences imposed in the U.S. dur­ing the past 25 years to deter­mine what fac­tors have led to the pre­cip­i­tous decline in the num­ber of peo­ple who are being sen­tenced to death. In this pod­cast, Professor Garrett…

Discussions With DPIC

Published: Sep 12, 2017

Death penal­ty pro­po­nents have long assert­ed that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment advances pub­lic safe­ty by deter­ring mur­ders, and this, they say, is espe­cial­ly true when it comes to pro­tect­ing police offi­cers. The Death Penalty Information Center recent­ly con­duct­ed an analy­sis of mur­der data from 1987 – 2015 to deter­mine whether the num­bers sup­port that claim. DPIC Fellow Seth Rose speaks with Executive Director Robert Dunham about the DPIC study and what it tells us about the rela­tion­ship between murder…