Publications & Testimony

Capital Punishment: Race, Poverty, & Disadvantage is a free on-line course offered by Yale Law School. The course is taught by Stephen B. Bright, President of the Southern Center for Human Rights in Georgia. According to Yale’s descrip­tion,​“This course explores the impo­si­tion of the death penal­ty in the United States with par­tic­u­lar atten­tion to the influ­ence of race and pover­ty, and the dis­ad­van­tages of men­tal illness or…

The Patriot-News in Pennsylvania is run­ning a series of arti­cles exam­in­ing the state’s death penal­ty in antic­i­pa­tion of a com­pre­hen­sive report on the death penal­ty com­mis­sioned by the state leg­is­la­ture. Pennsylvania has not car­ried out an exe­cu­tion since 1999, and all three of its exe­cu­tions in the mod­ern era were inmates who waived their appeals. Incoming Governor Tom Wolf has said he may hold off on allowing executions…

UPDATE: Brannan was denied clemen­cy by Georgia on Jan.12. Andrew Brannan, a dec­o­rat­ed vet­er­an of the Vietnam War, is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed in Georgia on January 13. His exe­cu­tion would be the first of 2015. Brannan’s attor­neys are ask­ing the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles to grant clemen­cy because Brannan suf­fers from post-trau­­mat­ic stress dis­or­der and bipo­lar dis­or­der. A police video from the crime scene illus­trat­ed Brannan’s…

DPIC’s 2014 Year End Report was fea­tured in numer­ous edi­to­ri­als since its release on December 18,…

In a recent op-ed in the Louisville Courier-Journal, three for­mer Kentucky pros­e­cu­tors advo­cat­ed for repeal of the death penal­ty. Citing the find­ings of a study by the American Bar Association on Kentucky’s law, Joseph P. Gutmann (pic­tured), Stephen Ryan, and J. Stewart Schneider said, “[T]he death penal­ty is bro­ken beyond repair in Kentucky.” Among the report’s findings were…

On December 31, 2014, Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley announced he will com­mute the sen­tences of the four men remain­ing on the state’s death row to life with­out parole. O’Malley signed Maryland’s death penal­ty repeal bill into law in 2013, but the repeal was not retroac­tive. In a state­ment, O’Malley said,​“Recent appeals and the lat­est opin­ion on this mat­ter by Maryland’s Attorney General have called into ques­tion the legal­i­ty of car­ry­ing out earlier death…

UPDATE (2015): There have been 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%…

On December 19, the Bureau of Justice Statistics released its annu­al sta­tis­ti­cal report on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the United States, with infor­ma­tion for 2013. It not­ed a con­tin­u­ing decline in the death row pop­u­la­tion and the num­ber of exe­cu­tions. Highlights of the…

On December 18, the United Nations vot­ed to adopt a res­o­lu­tion call­ing for a glob­al mora­to­ri­um on the death penal­ty, with an eye toward abo­li­tion. A record high 117 coun­tries vot­ed in favor of the res­o­lu­tion. The United States was one of just 38 nations that opposed it, and 34 nations abstained. Two years ago, a sim­i­lar res­o­lu­tion passed with 111​“yes” votes. This year’s res­o­lu­tion also urged those coun­tries that still car­ry out exe­cu­tions not to…

The par­ents of James Holmes recent­ly explained that their son is severe­ly men­tal­ly ill and asked he be spared the death penal­ty. Holmes is accused of killing numer­ous peo­ple at a movie the­ater in Aurora, Colorado. Robert and Arlene Holmes said they were aware of the great harm their son caused, not­ing,​“We are always pray­ing for every­one in Aurora. We wish that July 20, 2012, nev­er hap­pened.” They also rec­og­nized the sen­ti­ments among some…