Publications & Testimony

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In a dis­cus­sion at the George Washington University School of Law, retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens said the death penal­ty cre­ates a high­er risk of error than oth­er crim­i­nal cas­es and is unfair, unnec­es­sary, and a ​“ter­ri­ble waste” of resources. Using the Boston marathon bomber tri­al as an exam­ple, Justice Stevens said jury selec­tion pro­ce­dures in cap­i­tal cas­es pro­duce juries who are ​“not rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the com­mu­ni­ty.” He said that, under these procedures,…

DPIC’s offices are closed for Memorial Day. In place of our dai­ly ​“What’s New” item, we are post­ing a video sum­ma­ry of the first ten items in our series, 50 Facts About the Death Penalty. (Click Read More at end of this post for the video.) We are shar­ing a new fact in the series dai­ly on Twitter and on our 50 Facts web­page, where you can find addi­tion­al back­ground infor­ma­tion. Follow our Facebook page for a week­ly video…

At age 6, Clifford O’Sullivan (pic­tured with his moth­er) tes­ti­fied in favor of a death sen­tence for the man who had killed his moth­er. That man, Mark Scott Thornton, is on California’s death row. Now, 20 years lat­er, O’Sullivan says he believes Thornton’s life should be spared. When he took the wit­ness stand dur­ing the sen­tenc­ing phase of Thornton’s tri­al, O’Sullivan told the jury, ​“All I think is that what the bad man did to my mom should hap­pen to him. It’s real­ly sad for my fam­i­ly ​’cause…

Conservative com­men­ta­tor George Will has decribed cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in America as ​“with­er­ing away.” In his syn­di­cat­ed col­umn in the Washington Post, Will out­lines a con­ser­v­a­tive case against the death penal­ty, high­light­ing Nebraska’s recent leg­isla­tive vote to repeal cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Writing that ​“exon­er­a­tions of con­demned pris­on­ers and botched exe­cu­tions are dis­may­ing­ly fre­quent,” Will lists three pri­ma­ry rea­sons why he believes con­ser­v­a­tives should oppose…

Nebraska’s uni­cam­er­al leg­is­la­ture passed a bill to repeal the state’s death penal­ty and replace it with a sen­tence of life with­out parole. On May 20, the bill passed its third and final round of debate on a 32 – 15 vote, receiv­ing bipar­ti­san sup­port. Senator Al Davis said, ​“There are so many rea­sons why we need to elim­i­nate the death penal­ty in Nebraska. It’s fun­da­men­tal­ly unfair, a ter­ri­ble mis­take and bad jus­tice.” Gov. Pete Ricketts has indi­cat­ed that he…

A report of the United Nations Human Rights Council issued on May 15 has urged the United States to end cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. The report, pro­duced as part of the United Nations’ peri­od­ic review of the human rights records of each of its mem­ber nations, iden­ti­fied cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the United States as a major human rights con­cern. At a hear­ing on the report on May 11, U.S. deputy assis­tant attor­ney gen­er­al David Bitkower acknowl­edged that the death penal­ty is an issue of…

A recent pub­li­ca­tion from Murder Victims’ Families for Reconciliation and an op-ed in the Kansas City Star high­light the views of Kansas mur­der vic­tims’ fam­i­lies on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. In Voices of Kansas, 13 fam­i­lies that have been affect­ed by mur­der share their expe­ri­ences in the after­math of a loved one’s mur­der and how that shaped their beliefs about the death penal­ty. Neely Goen, whose father, Conroy O’Brien, was killed while work­ing as a Kansas State…

The Death Penalty: A Worldwide Perspective by Roger Hood and Carolyn Hoyle, now in its Fifth Edition, is ​“wide­ly regard­ed as the lead­ing author­i­ty on the death penal­ty in its inter­na­tion­al con­text.” The book explores the move­ment toward world­wide abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty, with an empha­sis on inter­na­tion­al human right prin­ci­ples. It dis­cuss­es issues includ­ing arbi­trari­ness, inno­cence, and deter­rence. Paul Craig, Professor of English Law at Oxford University, said of the…

Two recent media reports reveal addi­tion­al details of irreg­u­lar­i­ties in Oklahoma’s admin­is­tra­tion and defense of its lethal injec­tion pro­ce­dures. A sto­ry in The Atlantic describes in detail the botched exe­cu­tion of Clayton Lockett and the failed attempts made by a para­medic and a doc­tor to insert the IV into Lockett’s veins. A Buzzfeed report asserts that Oklahoma’s brief to the Supreme Court in the lethal injec­tion case, Glossip v. Gross,…