Publications & Testimony

A new book by Prof. Jeffrey Kirchmeier of the City University of New York exam­ines the recent his­to­ry of race and the death penal­ty in the U.S. The book uses the sto­ry of a Georgia death row inmate named Warren McCleskey, whose chal­lenge to the state’s death penal­ty went all the way to the Supreme Court. In 1987 the Court held (5 – 4) that his sta­tis­ti­cal evi­dence show­ing that Georgia’s sys­tem of cap­i­tal punishment was…

Trial prepa­ra­tions in the death penal­ty pros­e­cu­tion of James Holmes in Colorado have already cost the state about $5.5 mil­lion, and the tri­al and like­ly appeals will add sig­nif­i­cant­ly more. Holmes is accused of the mass shoot­ing in a movie the­ater in Aurora. Most of the costs — $4.5 mil­lion — have come from the salaries of per­son­nel work­ing on the case, includ­ing the pros­e­cu­tors, defense attor­neys, the judge, inves­ti­ga­tors, and vic­tims’ advo­cates. Additional…

Even as exe­cu­tions have declined in the U.S., those being car­ried out often illus­trate seri­ous prob­lems that have plagued the death penal­ty for many years. Of the six exe­cu­tions January, two (in Florida and Oklahoma) involved a lethal injec­tion pro­to­col that is now under review by the U.S. Supreme Court. Georgia exe­cut­ed Andrew Brannan, a dec­o­rat­ed Vietnam War vet­er­an with Post-Traumatic…

A recent law review arti­cle report­ed wide vari­a­tions among states in exempt­ing defen­dants with intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty from the death penal­ty. Professor John Blume (l.) of Cornell Law School, along with three co-authors, ana­lyzed claims filed under the Supreme Court’s deci­sion in Atkins v. Virginia (2002) against exe­cut­ing defen­dants with intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty (for­mer­ly, ​“men­tal retar­da­tion”). Overall, from 2002 through 2013, only about 7.7% (371) of death row…

In light of the three botched exe­cu­tions that took place in 2014, the Washington Post pub­lished an edi­to­r­i­al urg­ing states not to drop ​“a veil of secre­cy over exe­cu­tions.” In par­tic­u­lar, the edi­to­r­i­al board oppos­es a pro­posed law in Virginia, which, ​“would make prac­ti­cal­ly every­thing about exe­cu­tions in Virginia a state secret — even the build­ing in which they take place. ” ​“It’s hard to see the com­pelling need for that kind of blatant censorship,…

Seattle’s Mayor Ed Murray, all 9 mem­bers of the Seattle City Council, and City Attorney Pete Holmes signed a let­ter in sup­port of a bi-par­ti­san bill to abol­ish the death penal­ty in Washington. Tim Burgess (l.), the President of the City Council, is a for­mer police offi­cer and detec­tive. The joint let­ter said: ​“There is no cred­i­ble evi­dence show­ing that the death penal­ty deters homi­cide or makes our com­mu­ni­ties safer. Instead, pur­su­ing capital punishment…

According to a new study prin­ci­pal­ly authored by Prof. Frank Baumgartner of the University of North Carolina, the death penal­ty is far more like­ly to be used if the under­ly­ing mur­der vic­tim was white rather than black. The study exam­ined every U.S. exe­cu­tion from 1976 – 2013 and found, ​“The sin­gle most reli­able pre­dic­tor of whether a defen­dant in the United States will be exe­cut­ed is the race of the vic­tim.… Capital pun­ish­ment is very rarely used where the vic­tim is a Black male, despite the…

In a dis­cus­sion at the University of Florida Law School, for­mer U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens said that recent research reveals that Texas almost cer­tain­ly exe­cut­ed an inno­cent man in…

The U.S. Supreme Court in Atkins v. Virginia (2002) banned the exe­cu­tion of indi­vid­u­als with intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ties (men­tal retar­da­tion), but allowed each state to set guide­lines for deter­min­ing whether an inmate has such a con­di­tion. In Georgia, cap­i­tal defen­dants are required to prove ​“men­tal retar­da­tion” beyond a rea­son­able doubt. It is the only state in the coun­try that sets such a high bur­den of proof for such claims. Warren Hill had a strong claim of intellectual disability.

On January 23 the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a chal­lenge to Oklahoma’s lethal injec­tion pro­ce­dures, par­tic­u­lar­ly its use of mida­zo­lam that was used in three botched exe­cu­tions in 2014. Four Oklahoma inmates asked the Court to review the state’s pro­ce­dures, but one of them, Charles Warner, was exe­cut­ed before the Court agreed to take the case. It is like­ly the oth­er three defen­dants will be grant­ed stays. When Warner was executed,…