Publications & Testimony

The editorial boards of Oklahoma’s two major newspapers and the leadership of the Oklahoma Conference of Churches are all urging voters to vote no on State Question 776, which would enshrine the death penalty in the Oklahoma constitution and remove from state courts the power to declare the death penalty cruel and unusual punishment. The Oklahoman called SQ 776 “unnecesary,” saying it, “should be rejected by Oklahoma voters on Nov. 8.” The Tulsa World also encouraged a no vote on 776, saying…

Former Ohio death row prisoner Kevin Keith (pictured) has filed a motion seeking a new trial to clear his name after evidence has emerged of systemic bias and erratic behavior by the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI) scientist whose testimony helped put him on death row. Keith and James Parsons, who also was convicted of murder and was sentenced to a term of 15 years to life in prison, have challenged the work of BCI analyst G. Michele Yezzo, who testified at dozens of trials over her…

Courting Death: The Supreme Court and Capital Punishment by Harvard Law Professor Carol S. Steiker and University of Texas Law Professor Jordan M. Steiker examines the U.S. Supreme Court’s “extensive — and ultimately failed — effort to reform and rationalize the practice of capital punishment in the United States through top-down, constitutional regulation.” The authors argue that significant constitutional flaws persist in the death penalty system despite the Court’s attempts to regulate it, and…

San Bernardino County, California is one of five Southern California counties that have produced more death sentences since 2010 than 99.5% of all U.S. counties. Along with its neighbors, Kern County, Riverside County, Orange County, and Los Angeles County, San Bernardino forms a “new Death Belt,” a region with high numbers of death sentences marked by overzealous prosecutors and poor representation for defendants facing a death sentence. In January 2013, San Bernardino had 37 prisoners on…

With newly discovered confessions and DNA evidence pointing to the prosecution’s chief witness as the actual killer, the Florida Supreme Court, on October 27, vacated the capital conviction of death-row prisoner Clemente Aguirre. Aguirre was convicted of killing his two neighbors — an elderly woman and her adult daughter — but he has always maintained his innocence and claimed that he discovered the women after they were deceased. After he was convicted, Aguirre’s post-conviction attorneys…

Kenya has commuted the death sentences of all 2,747 prisoners on the nation’s death row. On October 24, President Uhuru Kenyatta signed orders sparing the lives of 2,655 men and 92 women who had been sentenced to death, commuting their sentences to terms of life in prison. While Kenya still authorizes the death penalty, it has not carried out an execution in nearly 30 years. In August 2009, former President Mwai Kibaki commuted the death sentences of the more than 4,000 prisoners who were then…

Support for the death penalty in the United States is at its lowest level since November 1972, according to a Gallup poll released October 25. Gallup reported that 60% of respondents said they support capital punishment — off one percentage point from last year — while opposition remained at 37%, matching its highest level since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the death penalty in 1972. Support has dropped 9 points since 2007 and 20 points since its peak in 1994. The results reflect the same…

Sherman Brown (pictured), a man who was sentenced to death in Virginia in 1970 for the murder of a 4‑year-old boy, has filed a writ of actual innocence with the Virginia Supreme Court saying that DNA testing on recently discovered evidence clears him of the crime. Brown’s petition states: “Recent DNA testing demonstrates by clear and convincing evidence what I have maintained for over 45 years: that I am innocent of this crime. The evidence against me at trial was deeply flawed.” Brown was…

The death penalty adversely affects both families of murder victims and families of the accused, according to two recent journal articles. In his Psychology Today blog, Talking About Trauma, psychologist Dr. Robert T. Muller (pictured) reports that psychological studies have have found that the death penalty produces negative effects on families and friends of murder victims (referred to as “co-victims”). One University of Minnesota study found that just 2.5% of co-victims reported achieving…

The Florida Supreme Court has ruled that death-row prisoners who had unsuccessfully argued that they are ineligible for the death penalty because of intellectual disability must be provided a second chance to prove their claims. On October 20, the Court decided in Walls v. State that Florida must retroactively apply the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2014 decision in Hall v. Florida, which declared Florida’s procedures for determining intellectual disability to be unconstitutional. Prisoners whose…