Publications & Testimony

Midland County, Texas, District Attorney Teresa Clingman (pic­tured) recent­ly accept­ed a sen­tence of life with­out parole rather than seek­ing the death penal­ty for Dan Higgins, a man who pled guilty to killing a Midland County Sheriff’s Deputy. Clingman’s deci­sion was part of a larg­er trend of pros­e­cu­tors choos­ing life with­out parole even for the most seri­ous crimes. West Texas A&M crim­i­nol­o­gy pro­fes­sor and for­mer prison war­den Keith Price said, ​“Capital death has so many…

The exe­cu­tion of Kelly Gissendaner was post­poned just hours before it was sched­uled to take place on March 2, after cor­rec­tion­al offi­cials in Georgia became con­cerned that the lethal injec­tion chem­i­cals appeared cloudy. ​“The Department of Corrections imme­di­ate­ly con­sult­ed with a phar­ma­cist, and in an abun­dance of cau­tion, Inmate Gissendaner’s exe­cu­tion has been post­poned,” the Department of Corrections said in a state­ment. Georgia is one of several states…

A February 2015 study by the Brennan Center for Justice exam­ined sev­er­al pos­si­ble expla­na­tions for the dra­mat­ic drop in crime in the U.S. in the 1990s and 2000s. Among the the­o­ries stud­ied was use of the death penal­ty, which the report found had no effect on the decline in crime. The authors explained, ​“Empirically, cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment is too infre­quent to have a mea­sure­able effect on the crime drop. Criminologically, the exis­tence and use of the death penal­ty may not even…

Several state leg­is­la­tures have recent­ly tak­en action on bills relat­ed to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. In Arkansas, a bill to abol­ish the death penal­ty passed the Senate Judiciary Committee on a voice vote. Bill spon­sor Sen. David Burnett, a for­mer pros­e­cu­tor and judge who both sought and imposed the death penal­ty, said, ​“It’s no longer a deter­rent. It’s a pun­ish­ment that’s actu­al­ly bro­ken. It does­n’t work. And it costs a huge amount of mon­ey to try and pros­e­cute those cases.”…

Cynthia Portaro, whose son, Michael (pic­tured), was killed in 2011, stood before a Nevada court­room on February 23 and asked pros­e­cu­tors to stop seek­ing the death penal­ty for the man con­vict­ed of her son’s mur­der. Prosecutors agreed to the request and said they would ask the judge to sen­tence Brandon Hill to life with­out parole. Portaro said, ​“I per­son­al­ly didn’t want to see anoth­er per­son die. I got what I want­ed — an apol­o­gy from Brandon. I felt a sense of relief that there…

UPDATE: Gissendaner’s exe­cu­tion has been resched­uled to Monday, March 2, due to a win­ter storm fore­cast to hit Georgia. Previously: On February 25 the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles denied clemen­cy to Kelly Gissendaner, the only woman on the state’s death row. Gissendaner was con­vict­ed of orches­trat­ing the mur­der of her hus­band, but did not car­ry out the killing her­self. At Gissendaner’s clemen­cy hear­ing, 21 peo­ple tes­ti­fied in favor of…

Mike Farrell, actor and human rights leader, argued in an op-ed in the Cleveland Plain Dealer that the case of Anthony Apanovitch in Ohio demon­strates sev­er­al sig­nif­i­cant prob­lems with the death penal­ty. Apanovitch was recent­ly grant­ed a new tri­al, 30 years after he was con­vict­ed. Evidence in Apanovitch’s case was with­held from his defense, and a DNA test was not per­formed until decades after the tri­al. “[W]hen the state seeks the penal­ty of death –…

In her first press con­fer­ence since tak­ing office on February 18, Oregon Governor Kate Brown said she will con­tin­ue the mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions that for­mer Governor John Kitzhaber imposed in 2011. ​“There needs to be a broad­er dis­cus­sion about fix­ing the sys­tem,” Brown said. ​“Until that dis­cus­sion, I will be uphold­ing the mora­to­ri­um imposed by Gov. Kitzhaber.” When the for­mer gov­er­nor announced the mora­to­ri­um, he also called for a statewide discussion about…

On February 18, the Montana House Judiciary Committee vot­ed (11 – 10) to advance HB 370, a bill to replace the death penal­ty with a max­i­mum sen­tence of life with­out parole. The same com­mit­tee had reject­ed sim­i­lar bills sev­er­al times in recent years. The bill will now move to the full House. Republican bill spon­sor Rep. David Moore (pic­tured) said he thought the bill had a decent chance of pass­ing in the House. Rep. Clayton Fiscus, one of two Republican mem­bers of the Judiciary…

Jeanne Bishop has writ­ten a new book about her life and spir­i­tu­al jour­ney after her sis­ter was mur­dered in Illinois in 1990. Change of Heart: Justice, Mercy, and Making Peace with My Sister’s Killer tells Bishop’s per­son­al sto­ry of grief, loss, and of her even­tu­al efforts to con­front and rec­on­cile with her sis­ter’s killer. She also address­es larg­er issues of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, life sen­tences for juve­nile offend­ers, and restora­tive jus­tice. Former Illinois Governor…