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 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 Colorado’s death penalty system “is broken beyond repair and needs to be repealed,” wrote The Denver Post.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…

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 2017, the…

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 said her office will not seek the death penalty because…