Publications & Testimony

Saying that the ​“law punishes people for what they do, not who they are,” the Supreme Court on February 22, 2017, granted relief to Duane Buck (pictured, right), a Texas death-row prisoner who was sentenced to death after his own lawyer presented testimony from a psychologist who told the jury Buck was more likely to commit future acts of violence because he is black. Writing for the six-Justice majority, Chief Justice Roberts (pictured, left) said that “[d]ispensing punishment on the basis of…

In a retreat from one of its prior decisions, the Florida Supreme Court ruled on February 20 that prosecutors could move forward with death penalty trials under Florida’s constitutionally flawed capital sentencing statute, provided the trial court specifically instructs the sentencing jurors that they must unanimously find all facts that could make a defendant eligible for the death penalty and that they must unanimously recommend death before the trial judge may impose a death sentence. In…

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 executions. Bessler draws on the writings of philosophers…

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 with severe mental illnesses, like…

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 Konrad, DPIC’s Director of Research and Special Projects as part of the…

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 millions in both the prosecution and defense of murderers and an…

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 protected interest…

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, describing Ohio’s 2014 execution of Dennis McGuire…

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 parole. The statewide poll of 784 Utah voters conducted by Public Policy Polling on January 13 – 15, 2017 and released on February 9 found that Utah residents preferred life-sentence alternatives over capital punishment by a margin 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 sentencing procedure in line with a Florida Supreme…