Publications & Testimony

In his newest book, The Death Penalty As Torture: From the Dark Ages to Abolition, John Bessler chron­i­cles the his­tor­i­cal link between tor­ture and the death penal­ty from the Middle Ages to the present day and argues that both are medieval relics. The book, released on February 17, 2017, asserts that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment is itself a form of tor­ture, despite mod­ern legal dis­tinc­tions that out­law tor­ture while per­mit­ting death sen­tences and…

In an op-ed in the Memphis news­pa­per, The Commercial Appeal, for­mer Tennessee Attorney General W.J. Michael Cody (pic­tured) has expressed his sup­port for a bill that would exempt peo­ple with seri­ous men­tal ill­ness from the death penal­ty. Cody, who lat­er served as a mem­ber of the American Bar Association’s Tennessee Death Penalty Assessment Team, said that ​“as soci­ety’s under­stand­ing of men­tal ill­ness improves every day,” it is ​“sur­pris­ing that people…

Saying ​“I’m young, I have a lot of ener­gy, and I’m up to the task of fight­ing for the rights of oth­ers,” death-row exoneree Isaiah McCoy (pic­tured, cen­ter) and his attor­neys spoke with DPIC about his wrong­ful con­vic­tion, his exon­er­a­tion, and his future. Just weeks after his January 19, 2017 exon­er­a­tion from Delaware​’s death row, McCoy and lawyers Michael Wiseman and Herbert Mondros (pic­tured with McCoy) spoke with Robin…

As Colorado​’s Senate Judiciary Committee con­sid­ers SB 95—a bill that would replace the death penal­ty with life in prison with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole — the edi­to­r­i­al boards of The Denver Post and The Durango Herald have urged the leg­is­la­ture to end cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the state. Colorado’s death penal­ty sys­tem ​“is bro­ken beyond repair and needs to be repealed,” wrote The Denver Post​. Repeal, it said, ​“would save the state…

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit on February 9 declared uncon­sti­tu­tion­al Pennsylvania​’s long-stand­ing prac­tice of auto­mat­i­cal­ly keep­ing cap­i­tal defen­dants in soli­tary con­fine­ment after courts had over­turned their death sen­tences. Saying that, ​“Scientific research and evolv­ing jurispru­dence has made the harms of soli­tary con­fine­ment clear,” the unan­i­mous three-judge pan­el ruled that pris­on­ers whose death sen­tences have been over­turned have a constitutionally…

In a guest col­umn for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, retired fed­er­al appeals court judge Nathaniel R. Jones (pic­tured) urged Ohio to ​“recon­sid­er its race to death” in sched­ul­ing exe­cu­tions while the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the state’s lethal injec­tion process remains in ques­tion. Jones, who served on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit from 1979 to 2002, crit­i­cized the state’s pro­posed use of the drug mida­zo­lam in executions,…

According to a new poll, near­ly two-thirds of Utah res­i­dents say they pre­fer some form of life sen­tence, rather than the death penal­ty, as the pun­ish­ment for mur­der, and a major­i­ty sup­port replac­ing the death penal­ty with a sen­tence of life with­out pos­si­bil­i­ty of…

Legislative com­mit­tees in Florida and Alabama have vot­ed to advance bills that would reform cap­i­tal sen­tenc­ing pro­ce­dures in those states that have been the sub­ject of exten­sive con­sti­tu­tion­al chal­lenges. In Florida, the Senate Criminal Justice Committee by a vote of 6 – 0 approved a bill that would require a jury to unan­i­mous­ly rec­om­mend a death sen­tence before the tri­al judge could sen­tence a defen­dant to death. The bill would bring Florida’s…

More than 2,600 Florida cas­es — includ­ing at least one cap­i­tal case — may have been taint­ed by erro­neous fin­ger­print analy­sis by a long-term employ­ee of the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, accord­ing to let­ters sent to defense coun­sel by the Orange-Osceola State Attorney’s Office. The rev­e­la­tions were anoth­er in a series of events rais­ing ques­tions about the reli­a­bil­i­ty of foren­sic evi­dence that is being used in cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tions across the United States. In ear­ly February…

In a February 6 edi­to­r­i­al, The New York TImes hails the reform efforts of the ​“new gen­er­a­tion” of state and local pros­e­cu­tors who are work­ing to change the United States’ crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem, and espe­cial­ly the use of the death penal­ty. The Times high­lights the com­ments of two new­ly elect­ed local pros­e­cu­tors, Beth McCann, the new pros­e­cu­tor in Denver, Colorado, and Kim Ogg, the new dis­trict attor­ney in Harris County, Texas. McCann has…