Publications & Testimony

William Sessions, for­mer head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, recent­ly point­ed to cas­es of defen­dants who were exe­cut­ed based in part on faulty hair and fiber analy­sis in call­ing for changes in the use of foren­sic evi­dence. In an op-ed in the Washington Times, Sessions told the sto­ry of Benjamin Boyle, who was exe­cut­ed in Texas in 1997. His con­vic­tion was based on test­ing con­duct­ed by an FBI crime lab that an offi­cial review…

Jim Petro served as Ohio’s Attorney General and presided over 18 exe­cu­tions. However, he aban­doned his sup­port for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment after see­ing the risks of wrong­ful exe­cu­tions: ​“Our jus­tice sys­tem is based on the deci­sion-mak­ing of human beings, and human beings are fal­li­ble. We make mis­takes and our judg­ments are influ­enced by bias­es and imper­fect moti­va­tions. Implementing the death penal­ty makes our errors per­ma­nent and impos­si­ble to rem­e­dy.” Recently,…

Twenty-one Oklahoma death row inmates, includ­ing three with upcom­ing exe­cu­tion dates, have filed suit against the state of Oklahoma chal­leng­ing the state’s lethal injec­tion pro­to­col. At a hear­ing in the case on September 18, U.S. District Judge Stephen Friot urged the state to stay the exe­cu­tions, which are sched­uled for November and December, say­ing, ​“It does not seem real­is­tic to me that the steps that need to be tak­en can hard­ly be com­plet­ed between now and then.” The inmates have asked…

The lat­est edi­tion of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund’s Death Row, USA showed an ongo­ing decline in the size of the death row pop­u­la­tion. The num­ber of pris­on­ers on death row decreased from 3,070 on January 1, 2014, to 3,054 on April 1. The new total rep­re­sent­ed a 12% drop from 10 years ear­li­er, when the death row pop­u­la­tion was 3,487. California con­tin­ued to have the largest death row, with 743 inmates, fol­lowed by Florida (404),…

In a recent speech in the U.S. Senate call­ing for the reau­tho­riza­tion of the Justice for All Act, Senator Patrick Leahy (D‑VT) spoke about the recent exon­er­a­tions of two men in North Carolina, cit­ing the impor­tance of DNA test­ing in their release from prison after 30 years: ​“The dozens of exon­er­a­tions made pos­si­ble by the Justice for All Act are tes­ta­ment enough to its val­ue,” Leahy said, ​“Henry Lee McCollum and Leon Brown are just the latest…

In The Birth of American Law: An Italian Philosopher and the American Revolution, his­to­ri­an John Bessler reveals the pro­found influ­ence that the Italian thinker, Cesare Beccaria, had on the con­sti­tu­tion­al founders of the United States, includ­ing George Washington and John Adams. Beccaria’s best­selling book, On Crimes and Punishments, argued against tor­ture and the death penal­ty, say­ing only pun­ish­ments proven absolute­ly nec­es­sary should be…

A new appeal filed on behalf of Mississippi death row inmate Eddie Howard, Jr. pre­sent­ed DNA evi­dence that calls into ques­tion bite-mark evi­dence used to con­vict him in 1992. At Howard’s tri­al, Dr. Michael West, a Mississippi den­tist who had tes­ti­fied as a foren­sic expert in numer­ous cas­es, said Howard’s teeth matched bite marks found on the mur­der vic­tim. The vic­tim had been buried for three days and exhumed before West exam­ined her. He said he found three…

On September 11, four news orga­ni­za­tions filed suit in fed­er­al court chal­leng­ing Pennsylvania​’s secre­cy about the source of its lethal injec­tion drugs as a vio­la­tion of the first amend­ment rights of the media and the cit­i­zens of Pennsylvania. The suit was filed by the Guardian, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and the Philadelphia City Paper in advance of the exe­cu­tion of Hubert Michael, which had been sched­uled for…

(Click to enlarge graph) A Field Poll of vot­ers in California found that sup­port for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment has reached its low­est lev­el since 1965. Only 56% of respon­dents said they favored keep­ing the death penal­ty, down from 69% in 2011. Support for the death penal­ty among Californians peaked in the mid-1980s at 83%. Some of the strongest oppo­si­tion to keep­ing the death penal­ty came from vot­ers under 30, African Americans, and Democrats. Daisy Vieyra, a spokesperson…

The high­ly acclaimed resource on the death penal­ty — ​“America’s Experiment with Capital Punishment” — has just been released in its Third Edition. This com­pendi­um of essays by experts cov­ers the his­to­ry, pol­i­tics, and law of the death penal­ty, as well as relat­ed issues, such as inno­cence, intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty, and race. DPIC’s Executive Director, Richard Dieter, con­tributed a chap­ter on the costs of the death penal­ty. The edi­tors encour­age read­ers to grapple…