Publications & Testimony

UPDATE: Bower was exe­cut­ed as sched­uled. EARLIER: Lester Bower is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed in Texas on June 3, after spend­ing more than 30 years on death row. Judges have denied relief on sev­er­al issues raised by Bower, includ­ing a claim that pros­e­cu­tors had with­held evi­dence from the defense sup­port­ing Bower’s con­sis­tent asser­tion that he is inno­cent. Bower was con­vict­ed of the 1983 mur­der of four men in Grayson County, Texas. He says he met with one of the…

In a cov­er sto­ry for TIME Magazine, award-win­ning jour­nal­ist and TIME edi­tor-at-large David Von Drehle explores the decline of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the U.S. Von Drehle offers five sig­nif­i­cant rea­sons for the drop in death sen­tences, exe­cu­tions, and pub­lic sup­port for the death penal­ty in the United States. First, he cites per­sis­tent prob­lems with the admin­is­tra­tion of the death penal­ty: botched exe­cu­tions and a lengthy appeals process that fails to identify…

California Superior Court Judge Thomas Goethals (pic­tured) dis­qual­i­fied the entire Orange County District Attorney’s Office from pros­e­cut­ing a death penal­ty case after find­ing that pros­e­cu­tors had engaged in a sys­temic pat­tern of police and pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct involv­ing the delib­er­ate, but undis­closed, use of prison infor­mants to obtain incrim­i­nat­ing state­ments from defen­dants. None of the 250 pros­e­cu­tors in the office are now per­mit­ted to par­tic­i­pate in the case.

In his col­umn for TIME Magazine, bas­ket­ball hall of famer, author, and film­mak­er Kareem Abdul-Jabbar broad­ly explores the state of the death penal­ty In the United States and con­cludes that life with­out parole is the bet­ter option for American soci­ety. Stating that “[t]he pri­ma­ry pur­pose of the death penal­ty is to pro­tect the inno­cent,” Abdul-Jabar notes that there is a sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­ence between the death penal­ty’s goal in the­o­ry and its appli­ca­tion in prac­tice. ​“While…

The Nebraska leg­is­la­ture vot­ed 30 – 19 to over­ride the veto of Governor Pete Ricketts and abol­ish the death penal­ty. Nebraska becomes the 19^th state to repeal the death penal­ty, and the 7^th state to do so since 2007. It is the first pre­dom­i­nant­ly Republican state to abol­ish the death penal­ty in over 40 years, and state leg­is­la­tors said Republican sup­port was crit­i­cal to the bipar­ti­san repeal effort. Sen. Jeremy Nordquist said, ​“This would­n’t have hap­pened with­out the fiscally…

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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…