Articles

A recent edi­to­r­i­al in the Lincoln Journal Star of Nebraska con­clud­ed that expe­ri­ence with inac­cu­rate evi­dence from crime labs shows that the death penal­ty can­not be trust­ed in the tak­ing of life. The paper called for the repeal of the death penal­ty based on a case in which the state’s CSI direc­tor tam­pered with evi­dence in a mur­der case. Recently, the Nebraska Supreme Court upheld the conviction of…

An edi­to­r­i­al in the Baptist Standard, pub­lished in Texas, recent­ly called for repeal­ing the death penal­ty in the next leg­isla­tive ses­sion. Among the rea­sons cit­ed by the paper for end­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment were prin­ci­ples of reli­gious faith, the risk of exe­cut­ing inno­cent defen­dants, its inef­fec­tive­ness in deter­ring crime, the high costs of pros­e­cu­tion, and its unfair­ness in affect­ing the poor and peo­ple of color.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch urged Missouri to end its death penal­ty as the sys­tem has ground to a halt because of con­tro­ver­sies involv­ing its method of exe­cu­tion. On May 8, a fed­er­al appeals court declined to rule on a chal­lenge to the state’s lethal injec­tion pro­to­col because the Department of Corrections could no longer obtain one of the three drugs spec­i­fied in the pro­to­col. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth…

Commentary from nation­al­ly syn­di­cat­ed colum­nist E.J. Dionne (pic­tured) and the New York Times reflect­ed on the chang­ing state of the death penal­ty in the U.S. in light of recent devel­op­ments. Dionne cit­ed the repeal of the death penal­ty in Connecticut as an exam­ple of a​“remark­able piv­ot in the pol­i­tics of the death penal­ty, the pre­mier issue on which an over­whelm­ing con­sen­sus favor­ing what’s tak­en to be…

In an op-ed writ­ten for the 25^th anniver­sary of the U.S. Supreme Court​’s deci­sion in McCleskey v. Kemp, nation­al­ly acclaimed death penal­ty expert James Acker (pic­tured) called for a reassess­ment of how race is affect­ing death penal­ty deci­sions. Prof. Acker ques­tioned the Court’s refusal to find bias in the wake of the strong sta­tis­ti­cal evi­dence pre­sent­ed in that case. He wrote,​“The time has sure­ly come for…

A recent edi­to­r­i­al in the New York Times called Connecticut​’s deci­sion to repeal the death penal­ty part of​“a grow­ing move­ment against cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment.” The edi­to­r­i­al attrib­uted the trend away from the death penal­ty to new research that shows​“gross injus­tice in its appli­ca­tion and enor­mous costs in con­tin­u­ing to impose it.” The prob­lem of arbi­trari­ness recent­ly came to light in Connecticut, where​“a powerful,…

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch called upon lead­ers in Missouri to make numer­ous changes to the state’s death penal­ty in light of a recent American Bar Association report pro­duced by a bipar­ti­san pan­el of lawyers, judges, pros­e­cu­tors and law pro­fes­sors. The edi­to­r­i­al high­light­ed many of the ABA’s rec­om­men­da­tions, includ­ing​“improv­ing evi­dence stan­dards, increas­ing pub­lic defend­er fund­ing and creating more…

Charles Hoffman, an assis­tant defend­er in the Office of the Illinois State Appellate Defender, recent­ly wrote an op-ed in the Chicago Sun-Times, mark­ing a year since the death penal­ty was repealed in Illinois. Hoffman, who has argued more than 30 death penal­ty cas­es before the Illinois Supreme Court, says that repeal­ing the death penal­ty was the right choice for the state:​“The right­ness of that decision…

A recent edi­to­r­i­al in The Washington Post high­light­ed ongo­ing prob­lems with Maryland​’s death penal­ty despite leg­is­la­tion passed in 2009 meant to reform the sys­tem. According to the edi­to­r­i­al,​“the legislature’s reform fixed noth­ing; if any­thing, it cod­i­fied a sys­tem even more arbi­trary than the one it replaced. Now the nature of the evi­dence, rather than the bar­bar­i­ty of the crime, is the crit­i­cal fac­tor. So a murder…

A recent edi­to­r­i­al in Nebraska​’s Journal Star urged sup­port for a bill to replace the death penal­ty with a sen­tence of life in prison. Among the rea­sons cit­ed for its posi­tion was the risk of exe­cut­ing an inno­cent per­son. The edi­to­r­i­al not­ed that advance­ments in DNA test­ing have shown the fal­li­bil­i­ty of the cur­rent sys­tem:​“Seventeen peo­ple who were on death row have been set free after DNA test­ing proved they were wrongly…