Publications & Testimony
Items: 1951 — 1960
Feb 13, 2018
As Support for Death Penalty Falls in Utah, New Study Again Says Life Without Parole Costs Less
An analysis by the Utah Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice of the cost of capital punishment has found that cases in which prosecutors seek the death penalty are more costly than cases in which life without parole was the maximum sentence. The Commission’s Death Penalty Working Group reviewed recent studies of death-penalty costs in Utah and across the country and found that, while there was disagreement about the magnitude of the cost difference, there was consensus…
Read MoreFeb 12, 2018
Pennsylvania Death-Row Prisoners File Lawsuit Challenging Automatic, Permanent Solitary Confinement
Five prisoners on death row in Pennsylvania have filed a class-action lawsuit challenging the Commonwealth’s policy mandating solitary confinement for all condemned prisoners. The five named plaintiffs have been held in solitary confinement between 16 and 27 years each, kept in cells the size of a parking space, allowed out for a maximum of two hours per day for exercise, and denied human contact with family members during prison visits. The prisoners, represented by the…
Read MoreFeb 09, 2018
Ohio Governor Grants Reprieve to Raymond Tibbetts Following Juror’s Call for Mercy
Ohio Governor John Kasich (pictured, left) has granted a reprieve to Raymond Tibbetts (pictured, right), temporarily halting his execution to permit the Ohio Parole Board to consider a juror’s plea for mercy in the case. In a February 8 letter to parole board Chairman Andre Imbrogno, the Governor requested that the Board convene a hearing to consider concerns about the case raised by Ross Geiger, one of the Tibbetts jurors. To facilitate that review, Kasich…
Read MoreFeb 08, 2018
American Bar Association Resolution: Ban Death Penalty for Offenders Age 21 or Younger
On February 5, the American Bar Association (ABA) House of Delegates voted overwhelmingly to adopt a resolution calling for an end to the death penalty for offenders who were 21 or younger at the time of the crime. According to a report accompanying the resolution, “there is a growing medical consensus that key areas of the brain relevant to decision-making and judgment continue to develop into the early twenties.” The ABA first opposed applying the death penalty against defendants younger…
Read MoreFeb 07, 2018
Nevada Prisoner Whose Case Confirmed Unconstitutionality of Mandatory Death Sentences Dies
Raymond Wallace Shuman (pictured), whose case led to a 1987 U.S. Supreme Court decision affirming the unconstitutionality of mandatory death sentences, has died in a Nevada prison at age 83. Shuman, one of the longest-incarcerated prisoners in Nevada history, was serving a life sentence for a 1958 murder when he was convicted of killing a fellow prisoner in 1973. At that time, Nevada law mandated the death penalty for life-sentenced prisoners…
Read MoreFeb 06, 2018
New Mexico Bill to Restore Death Penalty Dies in Committee
The latest effort by death-penalty proponents to reinstate the death penalty in New Mexico has died in a House committee. House Bill 155, which would have brought back the death penalty for murders of children, police officers, and corrections employees, was tabled by the House Consumer and Public Affairs Committee by a 3 – 2 vote following a Saturday hearing on the bill on February 3, 2018. The bill, introduced by Albuquerque Rep. Monica C. Youngblood, was the…
Read MoreFeb 05, 2018
Ohio Juror Asks Governor to Commute Death Sentence of Raymond Tibbetts
A juror who served on the capital murder trial of Raymond Tibbetts (pictured) and voted to sentence Tibbetts to death has written to Ohio Governor John Kasich asking Kasich to halt Tibbetts’s scheduled February 13 execution and commute his sentence to life without parole. In a January 30 letter to Governor Kasich, juror Ross Geiger — who, at the time of trial, described himself as a conservative Republican — said after learning the “truly…
Read MoreFeb 02, 2018
BOOK: Death-Row Exoneree Anthony Ray Hinton Publishes “Heart-Wrenching Yet Ultimately Hopeful” Memoir
Anthony Ray Hinton spent thirty years confined on Alabama’s death row for murders he did not commit. Three years after his exoneration and release, he has published a memoir of his life, The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row, that recounts stories from his childhood, the circumstances of his arrest, the travesty of his trial, how he survived and grew on death row, and how he won his freedom. The book,…
Read MoreFeb 01, 2018
Researcher: Racial Disparities Require Abolishing or Severely Restricting Death Penalty
Severely restricting the use of capital punishment or abolishing the death penalty altogether would help rectify some of the persistent racial disparities found in the United States’ criminal justice system, according to Cassia Spohn (pictured), the Foundation Professor of Criminology and Director of the School of Criminology & Criminal Justice at Arizona State University. In a chapter on Race and Sentencing Disparity in the recently released Academy for Justice…
Read MoreJan 31, 2018
Alabama Prosecutors Join Motion to Resentence Death-Row Prisoner With 48 IQ to Life Without Parole
Alabama prosecutors have agreed that Renard Marcel Daniel (pictured) should be resentenced to life without parole, after the state’s mental health expert administered psychological tests to Daniel that showed the intellectually disabled man had an IQ of 48. Earlier in January, Daniel’s lawyers — with the consent of the Alabama Attorney General’s office — filed a motion in federal district court jointly asking the court to vacate Daniel’s death sentence and return…
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