Publications & Testimony

Jim Davidsaver, a retired police cap­tain with over 25 years expe­ri­ence in the Lincoln (Nebraska) Police Department, recent­ly advo­cat­ed for repeal of the state’s death penal­ty from a law enforce­ment per­spec­tive. In an op-ed in the Lincoln Journal-Star, Davidsaver said, “[M]y pro­fes­sion­al expe­ri­ence has shown me that our state’s death penal­ty doesn’t keep us any safer. Its exor­bi­tant cost actu­al­ly detracts from pro­grams that would pro­mote the overall…

UPDATE (11/​24): A judge for­mal­ly dropped the charges against Wiley Bridgeman (pic­tured), mak­ing him the 149^th per­son exon­er­at­ed from death row since 1973. Previously: Cuyahoga County, Ohio pros­e­cu­tors have filed a motion to drop mur­der charges against Ricky Jackson and his co-defen­dants, Wiley Bridgeman and Kwame Ajamu (for­mer­ly known as Ronnie Bridgeman). The three men were…

Former death row inmate Ricky Jackson will be for­mal­ly exon­er­at­ed on November 21 in Ohio, after spend­ing 39 years in prison. A judge in Cleveland will dis­miss all charges against Jackson, with the pros­e­cu­tion in agree­ment. Jackson is one of three men con­vict­ed of the 1975 mur­der of Harold Franks. The oth­er two defen­dants, Ronnie and Wiley Bridgeman, were also sen­tenced to death and have filed a peti­tion for a new tri­al, but that peti­tion has not yet been…

The Ohio leg­is­la­ture is con­sid­er­ing a bill that would pre­vent the pub­lic and the courts from know­ing the name of com­pound­ing phar­ma­cies that pro­duce lethal injec­tion drugs for the state and the iden­ti­ty of med­ical per­son­nel par­tic­i­pat­ing in exe­cu­tions. Critics of the bill say such inter­fer­ence with the courts and the First Amendment right to free speech would be uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. At a com­mit­tee hear­ing, Dennis Hetzel, exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Ohio Newspaper Association,…

In a recent edi­to­r­i­al, the Washington Post urged Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley to com­mute the sen­tences of the four men remain­ing on the state’s death row, say­ing, ​“To car­ry out exe­cu­tions post-repeal would be both cru­el, because the leg­is­la­tion under­pin­ning the sen­tence has been scrapped, and unusu­al, because doing so would be his­tor­i­cal­ly unprece­dent­ed.” Maryland is one of three states that have repealed the death penal­ty prospec­tive­ly but still have inmates on…

In Part Two of its inves­ti­ga­tion into the fed­er­al review of state death penal­ty cas­es, Death by Deadline, The Marshall Project found that in almost every case where lawyers missed crti­ical fil­ing dead­lines for fed­er­al appeals, the only per­son sanc­tioned was the death row pris­on­er. Often the inmate’s entire fed­er­al review was for­feit­ed. The report high­light­ed the dis­par­i­ty between the 17 fed­er­al judi­cial dis­tricts where gov­ern­ment-fund­ed attorneys…

An inves­ti­ga­tion by The Marshall Project showed that since Congress put strict time restric­tions on fed­er­al appeals in 1996, lawyers for death row inmates missed the dead­line at least 80 times, includ­ing 16 in which the pris­on­ers have since been exe­cut­ed. The most recent of such cas­es occurred on Nov. 13, when Chadwick Banks was put to death in Florida with no review in fed­er­al court. This final part of a death penal­ty appeal, also called habeas…

Three cap­i­tal cas­es in one coun­ty have already cost Washington almost $10 mil­lion, and have bare­ly begun. For the tri­al of Christopher Monfort, King County has already spent over $4 mil­lion, and it is still in the jury selec­tion phase. Two oth­er cap­i­tal cas­es in the coun­ty have cost a com­bined $4.9 mil­lion, and the tri­als have not start­ed. The cap­i­tal case of ser­i­al killer Gary Ridgway, which is believed to be the most expen­sive case in Washington’s his­to­ry, cost about $12…

In a recent inter­view, Judge Michael A. Ponsor, who presided over the first fed­er­al death penal­ty tri­al in Massachusetts in over 50 years, warned that the death penal­ty comes with a ​“heavy price” — the risk of exe­cut­ing inno­cent peo­ple: ​“A legal regime per­mit­ting cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment comes with a fair­ly heavy price.…where there’s a death penal­ty inno­cent peo­ple will die. Sooner or lat­er — we hope not too often — some­one who didn’t com­mit the crime will be…

(Click to enlarge). On November 12, the American Psychiatric Association, Mental Health America, 30 for­mer judges, pros­e­cu­tors, and Attorneys General, 50 evan­gel­i­cal faith lead­ers, and the American Bar Association joined many oth­ers in call­ing on Texas Governor Rick Perry to com­mute the sen­tence of death row inmate Scott Panetti because of his severe men­tal ill­ness. Despite his long his­to­ry of hos­pi­tal­iza­tion in men­tal insti­tu­tions, Panetti is…