Publications & Testimony

Three for­mer Chief Justices of the Oregon Supreme Court have recent­ly called for an end to the death penal­ty in their state. Retired Chief Justice Wallace P. Carson, Jr. (l.), was the most recent Justice to call for a change: ​“In my opin­ion, the excep­tion­al cost of death penal­ty cas­es and the seem­ing­ly hap­haz­ard selec­tion of which cas­es deserve the death penal­ty out­weigh any per­ceived pub­lic ben­e­fit of this sanc­tion,” Carson said. ​“The fair­ly recent addition…

On April 28 a study pub­lished in the pres­tigous Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences indi­cat­ed that far more inno­cent peo­ple have been sen­tenced to death than those found through the legal process. According to the study, many inno­cent defen­dants are prob­a­bly not being iden­ti­fied because they were tak­en off death row and giv­en a less­er sen­tence. The rate of exon­er­a­tions for those sen­tenced to death would be over twice as high if all cas­es were giv­en the…

On April 23 the U.S. Supreme Court rein­stat­ed the death sen­tence of Kentucky inmate Robert Woodall, revers­ing an ear­li­er rul­ing by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. At Woodall’s tri­al, his attor­ney asked the judge to instruct the jury not to draw any neg­a­tive infer­ence from the fact that Woodall had not tes­ti­fied in the sen­tenc­ing phase. The judge refused to give the instruc­tion. The 6^th Circuit held that the fail­ure to instruct the jury was a…

In a peti­tion to the Ohio Parole Board, Cuyahoga County pros­e­cu­tor Tim McGinty (pic­tured) request­ed the death sen­tence of Arthur Tyler be reduced to life in prison with­out parole. McGinty said, ​“At the time of Tyler’s tri­al, Ohio law did not allow for the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a sen­tence of life with­out parole for an aggra­vat­ed mur­der conviction.…In light of the lim­it­ed sen­tenc­ing options, the absence of the option of a sentence…

UPDATE: On April 23, the Oklahoma Supreme Court held that the inmates fac­ing exe­cu­tion do not have a right to be informed of the source of the drugs that will be used in their exe­cu­tions. The Court lift­ed the stays of exe­cu­tion, which means they could occur on April 29. ‑Earlier: On April 21, the Oklahoma Supreme Court indef­i­nite­ly stayed the exe­cu­tions of Clayton Lockett and Charles Warner so it could resolve the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of a state…

The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles will soon con­sid­er the clemen­cy peti­tion of Robert Holsey describ­ing a near com­plete fail­ure in the judi­cial process that sent him to death row in 1997. As Marc Bookman described in the lat­est edi­tion of Mother Jones, Holsey was assigned a lawyer, Andy Prince, who con­sumed a quart of vod­ka every night of the tri­al. While prepar­ing Holsey’s case, he was arrest­ed in an inci­dent after point­ing a gun at a black…

UPDATE: (4/​21). The Oklahoma Supreme Court (5 – 4) has stayed the exe­cu­tions of Lockett and Warner. Earlier:In a 3 – 2 deci­sion on April 18, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals (OCCA) said it could not grant a stay of exe­cu­tion to two death row inmates fac­ing immi­nent exe­cu­tion because they had not filed a prop­er motion. Earlier, the Oklahoma Supreme Court said the OCCA should be the court to grant a stay, espe­cial­ly since there were unset­tled ques­tions about…

On April 17, the New Hampshire Senate vot­ed 12 – 12 on a bill to repeal the death penal­ty. The Senate then vot­ed to table the bill, mean­ing it could be brought up for recon­sid­er­a­tion lat­er in the leg­isla­tive ses­sion. New Hampshire has not had an exe­cu­tion since 1939 and has only 1 per­son on death row, whose sta­tus would not have been affect­ed by the bill. The bill had over­whelm­ing­ly passed the House ear­li­er, and Gov. Maggie Hassan indi­cat­ed she would have…

A new study pub­lished by Professors Jon Gould (l.) of American University and Richard Leo of the University of San Francisco, along with oth­er researchers, exam­ined fac­tors that have con­tributed to wrong­ful con­vic­tions in crim­i­nal cas­es. The study com­pared cas­es in which ​“guilty” defen­dants were even­tu­al­ly exon­er­at­ed to those in which defen­dants were not con­vict­ed in the first place. The researchers found a num­ber of vari­ables that sep­a­rat­ed wrong­ful con­vic­tions from so-called ​“near misses,”…

In advance of a New Hampshire Senate vote expect­ed on April 17, the Boston Globe pub­lished an edi­to­r­i­al call­ing on their neigh­bor­ing state’s leg­is­la­tors to sup­port repeal of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. The edi­to­r­i­al high­light­ed the bipar­ti­san sup­port for abo­li­tion in the New Hampshire House, and Gov. Maggie Hassan’s pledge to sign the repeal bill if it pass­es the Senate. Among their rea­sons for endors­ing the mea­sure, the Globe said,…