Publications & Testimony

A study of more than three decades of homi­cide arrests sug­gests that racial dis­par­i­ties in arrests and polic­ing prac­tices intro­duce an addi­tion­al lay­er of bias in the appli­ca­tion of the death penal­ty in the United…

Following the Washington Supreme Court’s October 11, 2018 deci­sion declar­ing the state’s death penal­ty uncon­sti­tu­tion­al, news out­lets have ques­tioned what comes next. Op-ed writ­ers in North Carolina, Texas, and California have respond­ed, urg­ing their states to recon­sid­er their cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment laws. The Washington court cit­ed racial bias, ​“arbi­trary deci­sion-mak­ing, ran­dom impo­si­tion of the death penal­ty, unre­li­a­bil­i­ty, geo­graph­ic rar­i­ty, and exces­sive delays” as reasons…

Fewer than half of Americans now believe the death penal­ty is fair­ly applied in the United States, accord­ing to the 2018 annu­al Gallup crime poll of U.S. adults, con­duct­ed October 1 – 10. The 49% of Americans who said they believed the death penal­ty was ​“applied fair­ly” was the low­est Gallup has ever record­ed since it first includ­ed the ques­tion in its crime poll in 2000. The per­cent­age of U.S. adults who said they believe the death penal­ty is unfair­ly applied rose to 45%, the…

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on October 19, 2018 stayed the exe­cu­tion of Kwame Rockwell (pic­tured), a severe­ly men­tal­ly ill death-row pris­on­er suf­fer­ing from schiz­o­phre­nia, who had been sched­uled to die on October 24. The court found that Rockwell had raised ​“sub­stan­tial doubt that he is not com­pe­tent to be exe­cut­ed” and reversed a rul­ing by the Tarrant County District Court that had reject­ed Rockwell’s competency…

As Seminole County pros­e­cu­tors seek the death penal­ty against Clemente Javier Aguirre-Jarquin a sec­ond time despite sub­stan­tial evi­dence impli­cat­ing anoth­er sus­pect, the Florida judge who ini­tial­ly sen­tenced Aguirre-Jarquin to death now says he should not be con­vict­ed. Retired Judge O.H. Eaton (pic­tured), who presided over Aguirre-Jarquin’s dou­ble-mur­der tri­al in 2006, said he now believes that the case is a ​“poster child” for the flaws in…

“Has the death penal­ty evolved into an anachro­nism?” asked a pan­el at the August 2, 2018 American Bar Association Annual Meeting in Chicago. Moderator Ronald Tabak, chair of the ABA Death Penalty Committee, and pan­elists Cardinal Blase J. Cupich of the Archdiocese of Chicago; Karen Gottlieb, co-direc­tor of the Florida Center for Capital Representation; Meredith Martin Rountree, senior lec­tur­er at the…

Most of the 142 pris­on­ers on North Carolina​’s death row were con­vict­ed under obso­lete and out­dat­ed death-penal­ty laws and would not have been sen­tenced to death if tried today, accord­ing to a new report by the Center for Death Penalty Litigation. The report by the Durham-based defense orga­ni­za­tion, titled Unequal Justice: How Obsolete Laws and Unfair Trials Created North Carolina’s Outsized Death Row, says that near­ly three-quar­ters of the prisoners…

A Nebraska coun­ty has raised prop­er­ty tax­es on its res­i­dents and asked the state leg­is­la­ture for a bailout to help pay a $28.1 mil­lion civ­il judg­ment it owes to six men and women wrong­ly con­vict­ed of rape and mur­der after hav­ing been threat­ened with the death penal­ty. The so-called ​“Beatrice Six” (pic­tured) suc­cess­ful­ly sued Gage County for offi­cial mis­con­duct that led to their wrong­ful con­vic­tions in the…

Finding that the death penal­ty ​“is imposed in an arbi­trary and racial­ly biased man­ner,” a unan­i­mous Washington Supreme Court has struck down the state’s cap­i­tal-pun­ish­ment statute as vio­lat­ing Washington’s state con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­hi­bi­tion against ​“cru­el pun­ish­ment.” The court’s rul­ing, authored by Chief Justice Mary E. Fairhurst and issued on October 11, 2018, declared: ​“The death penal­ty, as admin­is­tered in our state, fails to serve any legitimate…

Marking World Day Against the Death Penalty, the gov­ern­ment of Malaysia on October 10, 2018 announced its inten­tion to abol­ish cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the Muslim nation of 30 mil­lion peo­ple. A con­ti­nent away, the Council of Europe and the European Union issued a joint dec­la­ra­tion reaf­firm­ing Europe’s ​“strong oppo­si­tion to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in all cir­cum­stances.” The European gov­ern­ment orga­ni­za­tions also urged their mem­bers to…