Publications & Testimony

The Republican Liberty Caucus of Kansas has offi­cial­ly announced its oppo­si­tion to the death penal­ty. The Caucus chair, Dave Thomas, said, ​“Any time you give the gov­ern­ment a pow­er that can be abused, it will or may be abused in the future. And tak­ing a cit­i­zen’s life is kind of the ulti­mate pow­er the gov­ern­ment can have.” The Caucus joined sev­er­al Republcan leg­is­la­tors, such as Sen. Carolyn McGinn and Rep. Steve Becker, in sup­port­ing repeal of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. The Kansas…

Dr. Joel Zivot, an anes­the­si­ol­o­gist at Emory University, recent­ly wit­nessed an exe­cu­tion in Georgia and wrote about the pres­ence of two physi­cians dur­ing the lethal injec­tion he observed. He quot­ed the Medical Practice Act describ­ing the role of doc­tors as those ​“engaged in the diag­no­sis or treat­ment of dis­ease, defects, or injuries of human beings.” However, he not­ed, ​“Life is not a dis­ease, defect, or injury. Nothing in the Medical Practice Act autho­rizes a…

In a recent inter­view, Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper stat­ed his oppo­si­tion to the death penal­ty, cit­ing the views of mur­der vic­tims’ fam­i­ly mem­bers and the high cost of imple­ment­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Hickenlooper said he had sup­port­ed the death penal­ty until he learned more about it. ​“My whole life I was in favor of the death penal­ty,” he said, ​“But then you get all this infor­ma­tion: it costs 10 times, maybe 15 times more mon­ey to exe­cute some­one than to put someone…

In the recent pro­longed exe­cu­tion of Joseph Wood in Arizona, the state appar­ent­ly veered from its exe­cu­tion pro­to­col when it employed 15 dos­es of lethal injec­tion drugs, rather than just a sin­gle dose fol­lowed by a sec­ond appli­ca­tion, if nec­es­sary, as stat­ed in its reg­u­la­tions. There have been numer­ous oth­er instances in which the state appeared to depart from its pro­to­col. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit crit­i­cized the state in 2012, saying…

Former Texas Governor Mark White and for­mer FBI direc­tor William Sessions have peti­tioned Texas to grant clemen­cy to death row inmate Max Soffar because of the strong chance that a rever­sal of his con­vic­tion will come too late due to his rapid­ly declin­ing med­ical con­di­tion. Soffar’s case has been reversed before, and his lat­est appeal is pend­ing before a fed­er­al court. Soffar’s sup­port­ers are ask­ing that he…

As schools begin their new terms, we would like to remind you of two edu­ca­tion­al resources on the death penal­ty free from DPIC. Our award-win­ning high school cur­ricu­lum, Educational Curriculum on the Death Penalty, includes 10-day les­son plans, inter­ac­tive maps and exer­cis­es, and a pre­sen­ta­tion of pros and cons on the death penal­ty for dis­cus­sion and debate. It is also avail­able as a free iBook for the Apple iPad. The iBook ver­sion incor­po­rates the…

The lethal injec­tion of Dennis McGuire in Ohio in January ​“was not a humane exe­cu­tion,” accord­ing to Dr. Kent Dively (pic­tured), a San Diego anes­the­si­ol­o­gist who exam­ined records relat­ed to the exe­cu­tion, which took near­ly 30 min­utes to com­plete. Dr. Dively made the state­ment in an affi­davit relat­ed to a civ­il rights suit filed by McGuire’s chil­dren. McGuire was the first per­son in the coun­try to be exe­cut­ed using a com­bi­na­tion of midazolam…

A new report from The Death Penalty Project, ​“The Inevitability of Error,” exam­ines the risk of wrong­ful con­vic­tions in cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tions through case stud­ies from around the world. The report ana­lyzes recent inno­cence cas­es in Japan, the U.S., Taiwan, and Sierra Leone, as well as old­er cas­es from the United Kingdom that encour­aged abo­li­tion efforts there. Among the cas­es includ­ed are those of Iwao Hakamada, who was released after 47 years on death row in…

On August 8 U.S. District Judge Gregory L. Frost ruled that no exe­cu­tions may be car­ried out in Ohio until at least January 2015. The court’s rul­ing length­ened a pre­vi­ous mora­to­ri­um imposed because of prob­lems with the state’s lethal injec­tion pro­to­col. Judge Frost said he extend­ed the stay of exe­cu­tions ​“in light of the con­tin­u­ing need for dis­cov­ery and nec­es­sary prepa­ra­tions relat­ed to the adop­tion and imple­men­ta­tion of the new exe­cu­tion pro­to­col.” Three…

A new­ly pub­lished study by Professor John Donohue of Stanford Law School found that arbi­trary fac­tors, includ­ing race and geog­ra­phy, sig­nif­i­cant­ly affect­ed death sen­tenc­ing deci­sions in Connecticut. While con­trol­ling for a vari­ety of fac­tors relat­ed to the sever­i­ty of the crime, the study’s abstract indi­cat­ed that “[M]inority defen­dants who kill white vic­tims are cap­i­tal­ly charged at sub­stan­tial­ly high­er rates than minor­i­ty defen­dants who kill minorities,…