Publications & Testimony

In a recent op-ed in the Denver Post, Colorado defense attor­ney David Lane argued that exam­ples of the state with­hold­ing impor­tant evi­dence in cap­i­tal mur­der cas­es should be grounds for recon­sid­er­ing the death penal­ty: ​“The death penal­ty in Colorado is a fatal­ly flawed gov­ern­ment pro­gram. The alter­na­tive is life with no pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole. Jurors for many years have expressed a pref­er­ence for that severe sanc­tion, which is actu­al­ly less cost­ly than the death…

On December 11, the U.S. Supreme Court unan­i­mous­ly reversed a Kansas Supreme Court rul­ing that had grant­ed relief to death row inmate Scott Cheever. The Kansas court had held that Cheever’s 5^th Amendment right against self-incrim­i­na­tion had been vio­lat­ed because tes­ti­mo­ny was giv­en at his sen­tenc­ing hear­ing by a psy­chi­a­trist who exam­ined Cheever pur­suant to a court order. Cheever had claimed he was under the influ­ence of drugs at the time of the crime. The…

In a let­ter to Texas offi­cials, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry urged a review of the con­vic­tion of Edgar Arias Tamayo, a Mexican cit­i­zen sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed in January 2014. Tamayo was not noti­fied of his right to con­tact the Mexican Consulate, a vio­la­tion of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, a treaty that the U.S. has signed and rat­i­fied. In 2004, the International Court of Justice ordered the U.S. to review the con­vic­tions of Tamayo and…

Andrew Cohen, writ­ing in The Atlantic, recent­ly exam­ined the evo­lu­tion in think­ing on the death penal­ty among Supreme Court Justices. Cohen not­ed that Justices John Paul Stevens (pic­tured), Lewis Powell, and Harry Blackmun all upheld new death-penal­ty statutes in Gregg v. Georgia (1976), there­by ush­er­ing in a return to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. All three, how­ev­er, lat­er said the death penal­ty under these stat­ues was not being applied con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly. Justice…

December 10 is Human Rights Day, the 65^th anniver­sary of the United Nations’ adop­tion of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. To mark this anniver­sary, for­mer New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson (pic­tured) joined Federico Mayor, President of the International Commission Against the Death Penalty, in draw­ing atten­tion to the steady decline inter­na­tion­al­ly in the use of the death penal­ty. As gov­er­nor, Richardson…

Timothy Johnson was acquit­ted of mur­der charges and released from prison in Georgia on December 5, twen­ty-nine years after being charged with a mur­der and rob­bery at a con­ve­nience store. Johnson had orig­i­nal­ly pled guilty to the crimes in exchange for the pros­e­cu­tion’s agree­ment not to seek the death penal­ty. The Georgia Supreme Court over­turned his con­vic­tion in 2006 because he was not prop­er­ly informed of his con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­tec­tion against self-incrim­i­na­tion and his…

When South Africa​’s Constitutional Court was cre­at­ed under then-President Nelson Mandela, its first act was to abol­ish the death penal­ty. Justice Arthur Chaskalson, President of the Court, announced its unan­i­mous deci­sion on June 7, 1995, stat­ing, ​“Everyone, includ­ing the most abom­inable of human beings, has a right to life, and cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment is there­fore unconstitutional.…Retribution can­not be accord­ed the same weight under our Constitution as the…

Jerry Martin (pic­tured, r.) was exe­cut­ed in Texas on December 3 for killing a cor­rec­tion­al offi­cer dur­ing an escape attempt in 2007. Meanwhile, John Falk (l.), who also par­tic­i­pat­ed in the escape and was report­ed­ly dri­ving the car that struck and killed the offi­cer, has not even been con­vict­ed six years after the crime. Falk’s orig­i­nal tri­al was declared a mis­tri­al due to prob­lems with the jury instruc­tions, and it is pos­silbe anoth­er trial…

In an op-ed in the Knoxville News-Sentinel, Tennessean Drew Johnson evoked con­ser­v­a­tives’ inten­tions to ​“pro­tect inno­cent life, pro­mote finan­cial respon­si­bil­i­ty and sup­port gov­ern­ment pro­grams that real­ly work” in crit­i­ciz­ing the death penal­ty. Johnson, a Senior Fellow at Taxpayers Protection Alliance and founder of the Beacon Center of Tennessee, cit­ed the many exon­er­a­tions from death row as anoth­er rea­son to chal­lenge cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment: ​“Life is too pre­cious to…

In a new report released on December 3, the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) called for police depart­ments to adopt new guide­lines to reduce the num­ber of wrong­ful con­vic­tions. The chiefs’ rec­om­men­da­tions include reforms of line­up pro­ce­dures, video­tap­ing of wit­ness inter­views, and for­mal­iz­ing the review of inno­cence claims. The IACP worked with the Justice Department and the Innocence Project to iden­ti­fy ways to reduce poten­tial sources of error and bias.