Publications & Testimony

The same Commission that freed for­mer death row inmates Henry McCollum and Leon Brown in September exon­er­at­ed anoth­er man who had been con­vict­ed of mur­der, Willie Womble (l.). The North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission freed Womble on October 17, dis­miss­ing his 1976 first-degree mur­der con­vic­tion and life sen­tence. Womble had been con­vict­ed of act­ing as a look­out while anoth­er man, Joseph Perry, robbed a convenience…

A recent ret­ro­spec­tive in the Fort Myers Florida Weekly on the state’s death penal­ty traced some of the prob­lems that have arisen since Florida resumed exe­cu­tions in 1979. During the exe­cu­tion of Jesse Tafero in 1990, six-inch flames shot from the prisoner’s head, and three sep­a­rate jolts of elec­tric­i­ty were required to kill him. Prison offi­cials attrib­uted it to ​“inad­ver­tent human error.” In the exe­cu­tion of Pedro Medina in 1997, flames and smoke again spewed out…

DPIC has recent­ly added four pod­casts to our new series on impor­tant facts about the death penal­ty in each state. Seven state pod­casts are now avail­able: Michigan, Wisconsin, Maine, Minnesota, North Dakota, Alaska, and Hawaii. We expect to add new episodes each week, with two more com­ing tomorow (Oct. 17). The series has begun with states that have abol­ished the death…

On October 14 a law­suit was filed by the fam­i­ly of Clayton Lockett (l.) against the state of Oklahoma for dam­ages relat­ed to his botched exe­cu­tion in April. The suit alleges ​“unsound pro­ce­dures and inad­e­quate­ly trained per­son­nel” and claims that Dr. Johnny Zellmer was the physi­cian present at Lockett’s exe­cu­tion. The fam­i­ly asserts that Zellmer, ​“was will­ing to, and did in fact, con­duct the med­ical exper­i­ment engaged in by Defendants to kill Clayton Lockett…

In a recent col­umn in the New York Times, Nicholas Kristof high­light­ed the work of Bryan Stevenson (pic­tured), refer­ring to him as ​“America’s Nelson Mandela.” Stevenson, the founder of the Equal Justice Initiative in Alabama, has focused his career on rep­re­sent­ing indi­gent defen­dants, espe­cial­ly those on death row through­out the south. In his new book, Just Mercy, Stevenson tells the sto­ry of rep­re­sent­ing and eventually…

The Oklahoma Department of Corrections recent­ly gave the media a tour (see video here) of its new­ly ren­o­vat­ed exe­cu­tion cham­ber. The state spent over $100,000 updat­ing the rooms in response to the botched exe­cu­tion of Clayton Lockett in April. Among the changes are a new gur­ney (an ​“elec­tric bed”), a new inter­com, and an atom­ic clock. Previously, com­mu­ni­ca­tions includ­ed col­ored sticks pushed through a wall, with a red stick indi­cat­ing some­thing had gone…

An inter­na­tion­al human rights con­fer­ence with an empha­sis on Asian cul­tur­al and reli­gious her­itage and a spe­cial focus on the death penal­ty will be held in Manila on October 27 – 28, 2014. Representatives from the Philippines, India, Japan, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Mongolia, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, and the European Union are expect­ed. The con­fer­ence is being orga­nized by the Department of Justice of the Philippines and the Community of Sant’Egidio, an inter­na­tion­al Catholic lay…

On October 10 many inter­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tions and coun­tries are focus­ing on the use of the death penal­ty around the world. The empha­sis this year is on men­tal health issues relat­ed to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, with groups advo­cat­ing for a ban on the exe­cu­tion of indi­vid­u­als with seri­ous men­tal ill­ness or intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ties. People with intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ties are vul­ner­a­ble to manip­u­la­tion dur­ing inter­ro­ga­tion and have dif­fi­cul­ty assist­ing in their own defense. Mental health problems can…

On October 8, 2014 for­mer death row inmate Manuel Velez (pic­tured with his son before his arrest) was freed from a Texas prison, fol­low­ing a ​“no con­test” plea to a less­er charge on August 25. Velez had been con­vict­ed of killing his girl­friend’s one-year-old son but con­sis­tent­ly main­tained his com­plete inno­cence. Velez’s con­vic­tion was over­turned in 2013 because his attor­ney failed to present evi­dence that the injuries lead­ing to the child’s…

County Judge Michael P. Donnelly, a mem­ber of Ohio’s Death Penalty Task Force appoint­ed by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, recent­ly called the costs of cap­i­tal tri­als ​“astro­nom­i­cal.” He went on to say that a coun­ty’s bud­get may be a fac­tor in deci­sions to seek the death penal­ty: “[W]ith 88 dif­fer­ent pros­e­cu­tors who have com­plete dis­cre­tion on whether to pur­sue it or not, and you have to draw the infer­ence that, in some coun­ties, it’s not pursued…