Publications & Testimony

In an edi­to­r­i­al sup­port­ing Washington Governor Jay Inslee’s recent­ly-announced death penal­ty mora­to­ri­um, the News Tribune (Tacoma) said its edi­to­r­i­al board ​“has grown increas­ing­ly uncom­fort­able with cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in recent years, and we now share Inslee’s feel­ing that Washington should move beyond it.” The paper said the gov­er­nor’s deci­sion ​“forced a wel­come new dis­cus­sion” of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. While acknowl­edg­ing the heinous­ness of many…

Support for the death penal­ty has fall­en sharply by 23 per­cent­age points since 1996, reach­ing its low­est lev­el in almost two decades, accord­ing to a recent poll by the Pew Research Center. The 2013 poll also found a 10 point drop in just the last 2 years in respon­dents who say they ​“strong­ly favor” the death penal­ty, from 28% to 18%. The per­cent­age of Americans who say they oppose the death penal­ty has risen to 37%. In 2011, Pew asked respon­dents about the rea­sons behind…

As a key New Hampshire com­mit­tee vot­ed over­whelm­ing­ly (14 – 3) to repeal the death penal­ty, a num­ber of leg­is­la­tors explained why they had changed their minds on this issue. Criminal Justice Committee Chair Laura Pantelakos (pic­tured) said racial inequities in the sys­tem led her to change her vote, cit­ing dif­fer­ent out­comes in recent cas­es for a black and a white defen­dant. Pantelakos, who has a grand­son about to become a police offi­cer, asked,…

In Missouri, the Director of the Department of Corrections tes­ti­fied that the state obtains its lethal injec­tion drugs by send­ing a cor­rec­tion­al offi­cial to anoth­er state with $11,000 in cash to pay a com­pound­ing phar­ma­cy called The Apothecary Shoppe. The offi­cer then hand deliv­ers the drug to the depart­ment. At a leg­isla­tive hear­ing on February 10, George Lombardi of the DOC said pen­to­bar­bi­tal was obtained in Oklahoma by pay­ing in cash in order to main­tain the anonymi­ty of…

Washington Governor Jay Inslee announced on February 11 that he would issue a reprieve for any death penal­ty case that reach­es his desk. He said he does not intend to com­mute the sen­tences of the nine men on the state’s death row, but his action will ensure that no exe­cu­tions occur while he is gov­er­nor. In his press con­fer­ence announc­ing the deci­sion, Inslee said, ​“Equal jus­tice under the law is the state’s pri­ma­ry respon­si­bil­i­ty. And in death penal­ty cas­es, I’m not convinced…

Questions about the appro­pri­ate­ness of new lethal injec­tion meth­ods have recent­ly stayed exe­cu­tions in Louisiana and Ohio and caused the Florida Supreme Court to order a hear­ing pri­or to the next exe­cu­tion there. In Louisiana, Christopher Sepulvado received a 90-day stay to allow a fed­er­al court to deter­mine whether the state’s new pro­to­col vio­lates his con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­tec­tion against cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment. He was…

A pend­ing fed­er­al law­suit in Missouri asserts that a state law shroud­ing the mak­ers of lethal injec­tion drugs in secre­cy is a form of pri­or cen­sor­ship and an inter­fer­ence with the pulic’s right to free­dom of speech and free­dom of the press under the First Amendment. U.S. District Court Judge Beth Phillips, who has already expressed con­cern about with­hold­ing this infor­ma­tion from a death row defen­dant fac­ing exe­cu­tion, is expect­ed to rule soon on this broad­er prob­lem. The…

In a debate held by the Boston Globe, all five Democratic can­di­dates for gov­er­nor of Massachusetts said they oppose the death penal­ty for accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Candidate Don Berwick said, ​“The death penal­ty has no place in our jurispru­dence.” Juliette Kayyem, in an ear­li­er state­ment on her Facebook page, said, ​“I have, based on my prin­ci­ples and on my work in death penal­ty appeals lit­i­ga­tion in Alabama, always opposed the…

On February 5, Texas is sched­uled to exe­cute Suzanne Basso. Basso would become the 14^th woman exe­cut­ed in the United States since the death penal­ty was rein­stat­ed in 1976. Basso is con­fined to a wheel chair and has a his­to­ry of men­tal ill­ness. Basso was con­vict­ed of mur­der­ing a men­tal­ly dis­abled man, osten­si­bly for insur­ance mon­ey. Others con­vict­ed in the offense did not receive the death penal­ty. A recent arti­cle in the Arizona Republic not­ed an…

Prison offi­cials in Texas are review­ing poli­cies cur­rent­ly requir­ing all death row inmates to be iso­lat­ed one to a cell for 23 hours a day. Executions in Texas are car­ried out in Huntsville, and the local chap­ter of the cor­rec­tion­al offi­cers’ union sup­ports chang­ing death-row prac­tices. Chapter pres­i­dent Lance Lowry said, ​“The cor­rec­tion­al offi­cers and tax­pay­ers would ben­e­fit from an eas­ing of the cur­rent poli­cies. Most death row offend­ers could be housed two to a cell. Some…