Publications & Testimony

Two recent reports from Ohio high­light­ed the decline in the use of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in that state. On March 30, the Ohio Attorney General’s Office released its annu­al report on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. The Attorney General’s report not­ed three new death sen­tences, one com­mu­ta­tion, and one exe­cu­tion in Ohio in 2014, down from the state’s peak of 17 death sen­tences in both 1995 and 1996. It also report­ed that Ohio juries have imposed four or few­er death sen­tences in each of the…

Attorneys for Texas death row inmate Max Soffar, who is dying of liv­er can­cer, con­tin­ue to seek a rever­sal of his case, even though judi­cial action — if it comes — may be too late. Soffar main­tains his inno­cence in the 1980 mur­ders of three peo­ple dur­ing a bowl­ing alley rob­bery. The sole evi­dence against Soffar is a con­fes­sion he signed after three days of unrecord­ed inter­ro­ga­tion that is incon­sis­tent with the facts of the case and, he main­tains, is false.

Of the 12 death sen­tences hand­ed down in Louisiana in the last 5 years, 8 have come from Caddo Parish. Caddo is also among the 2% of U.S. coun­ties respon­si­ble for 56% of peo­ple on death row. With a pop­u­la­tion of just 257,000, Caddo Parish has sent 16 peo­ple to death row, the sec­ond high­est of any parish in Louisiana. Two pros­e­cu­tors, one of whom is under inves­ti­ga­tion for pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct, are respon­si­ble for 6 of the recent death sen­tences. Hugo Holland, who handled…

California’s death row — the largest in the coun­try — is expand­ing beyond the capac­i­ty of San Quentin State Prison to hold it. In response, Governor Jerry Brown has pro­posed a $3.2 mil­lion expen­di­ture to make about 100 new cells avail­able to incar­cer­ate death row inmates. California has not exe­cut­ed any death-row pris­on­er since 2006. Court rul­ings have barred the state from using its lethal injec­tion pro­to­col and, last July, in the case of…

Anthony Ray Hinton (pic­tured, l.) has been exon­er­at­ed after spend­ing near­ly 30 years on Alabama​’s death row. He will be released on April 3. Hinton was con­vict­ed of the 1985 mur­ders of two fast-food restau­rant man­agers based upon the tes­ti­mo­ny of a state foren­sic exam­in­er that the bul­lets in the two mur­ders came from a gun found in Hinton’s house. The pros­e­cu­tor, who had a doc­u­ment­ed his­to­ry of racial bias, said he could tell Hinton was guilty and ​“evil” just…

Former prison war­den, Frank Thompson, has urged repeal of Delaware’s death penal­ty. In an op-ed for The News Journal of Delaware, the for­mer war­den, who has per­son­al­ly over­seen two exe­cu­tions, describes ​“the immea­sur­able bur­den that th[e exe­cu­tion] process places on cor­rec­tion­al offi­cers” and the trau­ma expe­ri­enced by cor­rec­tion­al offi­cers who must car­ry out exe­cu­tions. Thompson says, ​“Many of us who have tak­en part in this process live with nightmares,…

Executions around the world declined by 22% last year, accord­ing to Amnesty International​’s 2014 annu­al report on death sen­tences and exe­cu­tions. The report — released on April 1 — indi­cates that an esti­mat­ed 607 peo­ple were exe­cut­ed world­wide in 2014, com­pared to 778 in 2013. The glob­al totals do not include exe­cu­tions in China, where data on the death penal­ty is con­sid­ered a state secret. On a region­al lev­el, Amnesty report­ed notable declines in Sub-Saharan Africa, where…

On March 30, the American Pharmacists Association (APhA) adopt­ed a res­o­lu­tion dis­cour­ag­ing phar­ma­cist par­tic­i­pa­tion in exe­cu­tions. The House of Delegates of the 62,000 mem­ber orga­ni­za­tion passed the pol­i­cy, which states, ​“The American Pharmacists Association dis­cour­ages phar­ma­cist par­tic­i­pa­tion in exe­cu­tions on the basis that such activ­i­ties are fun­da­men­tal­ly con­trary to the role of phar­ma­cists as providers of health care.” William Fassett, pro­fes­sor emeritus of…

On Monday, March 30, the U.S. Supreme Court grant­ed review of three Kansas death penal­ty cas­es and heard oral argu­ment in a Louisiana case that pre­sent­ed ques­tions on the role of the fed­er­al courts in deter­min­ing whether a state pris­on­er who faces the death penal­ty has intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty. In the cas­es of Kansas v. Reginald Carr, Kansas v. Jonathan Carr, and Kansas v. Sidney…

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…