Publications & Testimony

In a new arti­cle for the University of Chicago Law Review, Professors Carol S. Steiker (left) of the University of Texas School of Law and Jordan M. Steiker (right) of Harvard Law School exam­ine the racial his­to­ry of the American death penal­ty and what they describe as the U.S. Supreme Court’s ​“deaf­en­ing silence” on the sub­ject of race and cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. They assert that the sto­ry of the death penal­ty ​“can­not be told with­out detailed atten­tion to race.” The Steikers’ arti­cle recounts the…

A recent arti­cle in Mother Jones exam­ines lin­ger­ing ques­tions in the deter­mi­na­tion of which inmates are exempt from exe­cu­tion because of mental…

According to a new poll by Public Policy Polling, a major­i­ty of Pennsylvanians find some form of a life sen­tence to be prefer­able to the death penal­ty, and more sup­port the death penal­ty mora­to­ri­um imposed by Governor Tom Wolf than oppose it. When asked what sen­tence they pre­ferred for peo­ple con­vict­ed of mur­der, 54% of respon­dents select­ed some form of life sen­tence, while 42% pre­ferred the death penal­ty. 50% were in favor of the Commonwealth’s death penalty…

UPDATE: After Louisiana denied com­pen­sa­tion to Mr. Ford — who is in hos­pice care, dying from Stage 4 can­cer — Stroud gave an inter­view to the Huffington Post in which he says ​“death penal­ty pros­e­cu­tions are a badge of show­ing how out-of-touch we are with oth­er civ­i­lized soci­eties.… We can’t trust the gov­ern­ment to fix pot­holes. Why should we believe they can design a death penal­ty sys­tem that’s fair?” PREVIOUSLY: In a let­ter to the Shreveport (Louisiana)…

In a let­ter to the President of the International Commission Against the Death Penalty, Pope Francis expressed the Catholic Church’s oppo­si­tion to the death penal­ty, call­ing it ​“inad­mis­si­ble, no mat­ter how seri­ous the crime com­mit­ted.” He con­tin­ued, ​“It is an offence against the invi­o­la­bil­i­ty of life and the dig­ni­ty of the human per­son, which con­tra­dicts God’s plan for man and soci­ety, and his mer­ci­ful jus­tice, and impedes the penal­ty from ful­fill­ing any just objec­tive. It…

Mamie Norwood, whose hus­band, Amos, was killed by Pennsylvania death row pris­on­er Terry Williams (pic­tured), recent­ly wrote a let­ter to two state offi­cials ask­ing them to ​“stop try­ing to exe­cute Terry…

UPDATE: On March 23, 2015, Judge Rosa Mroz offi­cial­ly dis­missed the charges against Milke. Milke has been added to DPIC’s exon­er­a­tion list. See Milke’s state­ment on her exon­er­a­tion. PREVIOUSLY: On March 17, the Arizona Supreme Court denied a request by pros­e­cu­tors that it review a low­er court’s order that dis­missed the charges against Debra Milke as a result of ​“egre­gious” police and pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct and bar­ring her…

A new study from researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill finds that the most like­ly out­come for a cap­i­tal case once a death sen­tence has been imposed is that the defen­dan­t’s con­vic­tion or sen­tence will be reversed on appeal. Execution is only the third most likely…