Publications & Testimony

Mark Edwards, chair of the Nash County (North Carolina) Republican Party, recent­ly spoke about replac­ing the death penal­ty with a sen­tence of life with­out parole: ​“As a con­ser­v­a­tive seek­ing to find the best way to pro­tect the res­i­dents of this great state from crime, I believe the death penal­ty has had its day in North Carolina. It is time to begin the debate on replac­ing the death penal­ty with life in prison with­out parole.” He also said, ​“We are advocating…

Republican Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma recent­ly said he believes the April 29 exe­cu­tion of Clayton Lockett, ​“was cer­tain­ly not done appro­pri­ate­ly.” Coburn, who is also a physi­cian, added, ​“It’s an unfor­tu­nate thing but, again, any­time you’re doing any­thing with the body, things can go wrong.” He also spoke more broad­ly about his views on the death penal­ty, say­ing, ​“I don’t like it. I wish we put every­body that had such a his­to­ry as this gen­tle­man behind…

As the last act of its leg­isla­tive ses­sion, the Florida Senate passed a bill allow­ing the state to com­pen­sate James Richardson, who had been wrong­ful­ly sen­tenced to death and incar­cer­at­ed for 21 years. In 1967, Richardson, who is black, was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death by an all-white jury for the mur­der of his sev­en chil­dren. Many years lat­er, a for­mer babysit­ter con­fessed to the crime, prompt­ing an inves­ti­ga­tion that revealed that wit­ness­es had been…

A recent New York Times edi­to­r­i­al described the ​“hor­rif­ic scene” of Clayton Lockett’s botched exe­cu­tion and called on Oklahoma to “[fol­low] oth­er gov­er­nors and leg­is­la­tures in ban­ning exe­cu­tions, rec­og­niz­ing that the American admin­is­tra­tion of death does not func­tion.” The edi­tors not­ed the Oklahoma Supreme Court’s tem­po­rary halt to the exe­cu­tion and point­ed to polit­i­cal pres­sure as a pos­si­ble expla­na­tion for why the Court then…

On May 7, the Constitution Project released a new report, Irreversible Error, call­ing for reforms in many aspects of the death penal­ty sys­tem. The Project’s Death Penalty Committee, which con­sists of renowned experts on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, made sug­ges­tions for reduc­ing the risk of exe­cut­ing the inno­cent and improv­ing the fair­ness of cap­i­tal cas­es from arrest and inter­ro­ga­tion, through pros­e­cu­tion and appeals, to the execution…

A recent sur­vey by the Kinder Institute of Houston, Texas, found that more than two-thirds (69%) of area res­i­dents pre­ferred alter­na­tive sen­tences over the death penal­ty, and that num­ber is grow­ing as the pop­u­la­tion becomes more diverse. The sur­vey asked whether per­sons con­vict­ed of first-degree mur­der should receive a death sen­tence, life in prison with­out parole, or life with the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole after 25 years. Only 28% of respon­dents chose the death…

President Obama has ordered Attorney General Eric Holder to review the appli­ca­tion of the death penal­ty in the U.S. fol­low­ing the failed exe­cu­tion of Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma on April 29. The President not­ed con­cerns about inno­cence and racial bias: ​“In the appli­ca­tion of the death penal­ty in this coun­try, we have seen sig­nif­i­cant prob­lems — racial bias, uneven appli­ca­tion of the death penal­ty, you know, sit­u­a­tions in which there were…

On April 30 Ohio Governor John Kasich com­mut­ed the death sen­tence of Arthur Tyler to life in prison with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole. The deci­sion fol­lowed a rec­om­men­da­tion for clemen­cy from Cuyahoga County pros­e­cu­tor Tim McGinty. Following a hear­ing on the case, the Ohio Parole Board rec­om­mend­ed com­mu­ta­tion of Tyler’s sen­tence to life with parole: six of the eleven mem­bers rec­om­mend­ed imme­di­ate parole eli­gi­bil­i­ty for Tyler, and the…

Randy Workman (pic­tured) is a for­mer war­den of the Oklahoma State Penitentiary, where he over­saw 32 exe­cu­tions. In a recent inter­view, he was crit­i­cal of many aspects of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. He said the death penal­ty failed the vic­tims’ fam­i­lies and wast­ed mon­ey: ​“We spend mil­lions of dol­lars on these cas­es and going through the process and the end result is the fam­i­ly, do they feel vin­di­cat­ed? I’d say 90% of the time the…

On April 29, Oklahoma inmate Clayton Lockett died of a heart attack approx­i­mate­ly 40 min­utes after the state began admin­is­ter­ing a new lethal injection…