Publications & Testimony

On July 16, U.S. District Court Judge Cormac Carney (pic­tured) held that the delays and arbi­trari­ness of California​’s death penal­ty sys­tem ren­dered it uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. Judge Carney vacat­ed the death sen­tence of Ernest Jones, who has spent near­ly 20 years on death row. On August 21, California Attorney General Kamala Harris announced the state will appeal the rul­ing to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Below are excerpts from Judge Carney’s…

A law­suit filed in fed­er­al court in Oklahoma on August 25 by var­i­ous news orga­ni­za­tions, includ­ing the Oklahoma Observer and the Guardian US, seeks to give media wit­ness­es a more com­plete view of exe­cu­tions than is cur­rent­ly allowed. The peti­tion alleges that the right to wit­ness the entire exe­cu­tion is pro­tect­ed by the First Amendment, stat­ing, ​“The abil­i­ty of the press to wit­ness the par­tic­u­lar facts and circumstances of…

After Ohio​’s two-hour attempt­ed exe­cu­tion of Rommel Broom (pic­tured) in 2009, it explored alter­na­tive meth­ods, includ­ing an intra­mus­cu­lar injec­tion of mida­zo­lam and hydro­mor­phone. Gregory Trout, an attor­ney with the state Department of Rehabilitation and Correction expressed con­cerns to Dr. Mark Dershwitz, the state’s expert wit­ness on lethal injec­tions, about whether these drugs would result in ​“gasp­ing for air in a hyper­ven­ti­lat­ing fash­ion, with eyes still…

The Republican Liberty Caucus of Kansas has offi­cial­ly announced its oppo­si­tion to the death penal­ty. The Caucus chair, Dave Thomas, said, ​“Any time you give the gov­ern­ment a pow­er that can be abused, it will or may be abused in the future. And tak­ing a cit­i­zen’s life is kind of the ulti­mate pow­er the gov­ern­ment can have.” The Caucus joined sev­er­al Republcan leg­is­la­tors, such as Sen. Carolyn McGinn and Rep. Steve Becker, in sup­port­ing repeal of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. The Kansas…

Dr. Joel Zivot, an anes­the­si­ol­o­gist at Emory University, recent­ly wit­nessed an exe­cu­tion in Georgia and wrote about the pres­ence of two physi­cians dur­ing the lethal injec­tion he observed. He quot­ed the Medical Practice Act describ­ing the role of doc­tors as those ​“engaged in the diag­no­sis or treat­ment of dis­ease, defects, or injuries of human beings.” However, he not­ed, ​“Life is not a dis­ease, defect, or injury. Nothing in the Medical Practice Act authorizes a…

In a recent inter­view, Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper stat­ed his oppo­si­tion to the death penal­ty, cit­ing the views of mur­der vic­tims’ fam­i­ly mem­bers and the high cost of imple­ment­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Hickenlooper said he had sup­port­ed the death penal­ty until he learned more about it. ​“My whole life I was in favor of the death penal­ty,” he said, ​“But then you get all this infor­ma­tion: it costs 10 times, maybe 15 times more mon­ey to exe­cute some­one than to put someone…

In the recent pro­longed exe­cu­tion of Joseph Wood in Arizona, the state appar­ent­ly veered from its exe­cu­tion pro­to­col when it employed 15 dos­es of lethal injec­tion drugs, rather than just a sin­gle dose fol­lowed by a sec­ond appli­ca­tion, if nec­es­sary, as stat­ed in its reg­u­la­tions. There have been numer­ous oth­er instances in which the state appeared to depart from its pro­to­col. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit crit­i­cized the state in 2012, saying…

Former Texas Governor Mark White and for­mer FBI direc­tor William Sessions have peti­tioned Texas to grant clemen­cy to death row inmate Max Soffar because of the strong chance that a rever­sal of his con­vic­tion will come too late due to his rapid­ly declin­ing med­ical con­di­tion. Soffar’s case has been reversed before, and his lat­est appeal is pend­ing before a fed­er­al court. Soffar’s sup­port­ers are ask­ing that he…

As schools begin their new terms, we would like to remind you of two edu­ca­tion­al resources on the death penal­ty free from DPIC. Our award-win­ning high school cur­ricu­lum, Educational Curriculum on the Death Penalty, includes 10-day les­son plans, inter­ac­tive maps and exer­cis­es, and a pre­sen­ta­tion of pros and cons on the death penal­ty for dis­cus­sion and debate. It is also avail­able as a free iBook for the Apple iPad. The iBook ver­sion incorporates the…

The lethal injec­tion of Dennis McGuire in Ohio in January ​“was not a humane exe­cu­tion,” accord­ing to Dr. Kent Dively (pic­tured), a San Diego anes­the­si­ol­o­gist who exam­ined records relat­ed to the exe­cu­tion, which took near­ly 30 min­utes to com­plete. Dr. Dively made the state­ment in an affi­davit relat­ed to a civ­il rights suit filed by McGuire’s chil­dren. McGuire was the first per­son in the coun­try to be exe­cut­ed using a com­bi­na­tion of midazolam…