Articles

The for­mer death row inmate con­tends the state vio­lat­ed his civ­il rights by with­hold­ing evidenceJoseph Neff, Staff Writer

A recent Los Angeles Times edi­to­r­i­al called on California law­mak­ers to impose a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions until a state com­mis­sion charged with exam­in­ing the fair­ness and accu­ra­cy of California’s death penal­ty laws can fin­ish its work. The paper not­ed that a sim­i­lar review led by New York state law­mak­ers result­ed in find­ings that effec­tive­ly end­ed cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in that state for this year. The edi­to­r­i­al stated:Many Californians, law­mak­ers as well as vot­ers, share those con­cerns (as expressed in New York) about fair­ness and fal­li­bil­i­ty. They wor­ry as well about the…

By PATRICK D. HEALYALBANY, Feb. 10 — A sol­id major­i­ty of Democrats in the State Assembly now oppose res­ur­rect­ing the death penal­ty, includ­ing key lead­ers who vot­ed for the law in 1995, mak­ing it more like­ly that it will not be revived, accord­ing to law­mak­ers on both sides.After two months of hear­ings into the issue, the chair­man of the Assembly Codes Committee, Joseph R. Lentol, said on Thursday that he now sup­port­ed life with­out parole instead of restor­ing the death penal­ty, for which he vot­ed in 1995. The Assembly speaker,…

Just days before the sched­uled exe­cu­tion of Donald Beardslee in California, the Los Angeles Times has called for his clemen­cy while ques­tion­ing the even-hand­ed­ness of the whole sys­tem. The edi­to­r­i­al con­cludes that the death penal­ty is a ​“lie” to the peo­ple of California: Donald Beardslee was 38 years old in 1981 when he shot one woman and stran­gled and slashed anoth­er in San Mateo County, retal­i­a­tion for a soured drug deal. He is now 61. So many years have passed since a jury sen­tenced him to die in the gas…

Published on Tuesday, December 28, 2004 by the Miami Herald by Bianca Jagger

Chicago Tribune

Chicago Sun-Times

A CHICAGO TRIBUNE INVESTIGATIVE SERIESChicago Tribune vet­er­an project reporters Flynn McRoberts, Steve Mills and Maurice Possley, togeth­er with researcher Judith Marriott, scru­ti­nized crim­i­nal cas­es includ­ing ​“sci­en­tif­ic” or foren­sic evi­dence, con­duct­ing hun­dreds of inter­views across the coun­try and exam­in­ing thou­sands of court doc­u­ments. From October 17, 2004 to October 21, 2004 the Tribune pub­lished a five-part inves­tiga­tive series which details the use of foren­sic evi­dence in crim­i­nal tri­als and con­cludes that foren­sic science’s false aura of infal­li­bil­i­ty dis­torts the adver­sar­i­al sys­tem of American jus­tice.Part I: Forensics Under the Microscope: Unproven techniques…

Daily Targum (Rutgers University)

Sedalia (MO) Democrat