Publications & Testimony

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The American Bar Association has released a new pub­li­ca­tion, The State of Criminal Justice 2015, exam­in­ing major issues, trends, and sig­nif­i­cant changes in America’s crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem. The chap­ter devot­ed to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment was writ­ten by Ronald Tabak, an attor­ney at Skadden Arps and board mem­ber of the Death Penalty Information Center. Tabak presents evi­dence of the declin­ing use of the death penal­ty in death sen­tences and executions,…

A new study to be pub­lished in the University of Denver Law Review shows that whether pros­e­cu­tors seek the death penal­ty in Colorado ​“depends to an alarm­ing extent on the race and geo­graph­ic loca­tion of the defen­dant.” The study — based upon 10 years of data col­lect­ed by attor­ney Meg Beardsley and University of Denver law pro­fes­sors Sam Kamin and Justin Marceau and soci­ol­o­gy pro­fes­sor Scott Phillips — shows…

Former Texas pros­e­cu­tor, Tim Cole — described by the Dallas Morning News as ​“a no-holds-barred law­man” in 4 terms as District Attorney for Archer, Clay, and Montague coun­ties — now says that ​“Texas should join the 19 U.S. states where the death penal­ty has been abol­ished.” In an op-ed in The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Cole says Texas’ dra­mat­ic decline in impos­ing the death penal­ty, from a record 49 death sen­tences in 1994 and 48 in 1999 to…

On June 29, the U.S. Supreme Court held (5 – 4) that Oklahoma inmates ​“failed to estab­lish a like­li­hood of suc­cess on the mer­its of their claim that the use of mida­zo­lam vio­lates the Eighth Amendment.” Three inmates on Oklahoma’s death row had chal­lenged the state’s use of mida­zo­lam as the first drug in a three-drug pro­to­col, say­ing that it ​“fails to ren­der a per­son insen­sate to pain.” In a nar­row deci­sion writ­ten by Justice Samuel Alito, the Court deferred to…

In an inter­view at Duke Law School, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg reflect­ed on the past term at the U.S. Supreme Court. She dis­cussed sev­er­al land­mark cas­es from the past year, includ­ing Glossip v. Gross, in which she joined Justice Stephen Breyer in a dis­sent that ques­tioned the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the death penal­ty. Ginsburg said she had wait­ed to take such a stance on the death penal­ty because past jus­tices, ​“took them­selves out of…

King County (Washington) Prosecutor Dan Satterberg (pic­tured) announced that his office will no longer seek the death penal­ty against Michele Anderson after a jury returned a life sen­tence for her co-defen­dant, Joseph McEnroe. McEnroe and Anderson were charged with killing six mem­bers of Anderson’s fam­i­ly in 2007 in what Satterberg called ​“one of the worse crimes we’ve ever had in King County.” Satterberg explained his deci­sion in a news con­fer­ence on July 29, say­ing, ​“To…

The Supreme Court of Delaware vot­ed unan­i­mous­ly on July 27 to sus­pend for­mer Deputy Attorney General R. David Favata as a result of his mis­con­duct dur­ing a recent cap­i­tal tri­al. With a sin­gle dis­sent as to the length of the sus­pen­sion, the Court banned Favata from the prac­tice of law for six months and one day for inten­tion­al mis­con­duct dur­ing the cap­i­tal tri­al of Isaiah…

A recent arti­cle in the The New York Times Magazine exam­ines the effects of the 1996 Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA), which was intend­ed to stream­line and short­en cap­i­tal appeals. Its title sum­ma­rizes the statute as ​“The Law That Keeps People on Death Row Despite Flawed…