Publications & Testimony

On October 21, the U.S. Supreme Court accept­ed a new case, Hall v. Florida (No. 12 – 10882), to deter­mine whether the Florida Supreme Court prop­er­ly upheld the death sen­tence of a man whose IQ is just above the state’s stan­dard for men­tal retar­da­tion. According to the state’s law, defen­dants with an IQ above 70 can­not be con­sid­ered intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled, even though most states use a broad­er def­i­n­i­tion and there is a mar­gin of error in such IQ tests.

Religious lead­ers from a vari­ety of faiths spoke about their reli­gious objec­tions to the death penal­ty at a recent meet­ing in Columbus, Ohio. The meet­ing includ­ed lead­ers from sev­er­al Christian denom­i­na­tions as well as Jewish lead­ers. Jack Chomsky, can­tor at Congregation Tifereth Israel, said he hopes more of his col­leagues will join him in speak­ing out about Jewish tra­di­tion, which oppos­es the enforce­ment of the death penal­ty. Jerald Freewalt, of the Office for Social…

Michael Morton (pic­tured), who was released after 25 years in prison for a crime he did not com­mit, and Barry Scheck, co-direc­tor of the Innocence Project, called for reforms in Texas’s clemen­cy process. In a recent op-ed in the Houston Chronicle, Morton and Scheck high­light­ed the case of Cameron Willingham, who was exe­cut­ed in 2004 despite seri­ous doubts about his guilt. According to the authors, it is now under­stood that inves­ti­ga­tors who believed that…

On October 16 the U.S. Supreme Court will hear argu­ments in Kansas v. Cheever. One of the key defense wit­ness­es in Scott Cheever’s death penal­ty tri­al tes­ti­fied that Cheever’s use of drugs impaired his judge­ment on the day of the crime. Prosecutors, in turn, called the physi­cian who per­formed Cheever’s court-man­dat­ed men­tal exam, and he tes­ti­fied that Cheever was aware of what he was doing when he com­mit­ted the crime, based on Cheever’s own…

Donald Cabana, the for­mer war­den of the Mississippi State Penitentiary who died recent­ly, spent many years active­ly oppos­ing the death penal­ty. Having super­vised sev­er­al exe­cu­tions, Cabana was par­tic­u­lar­ly dis­turbed about one in which the inmate may have been inno­cent. He said, “[H]owever we do it, in the name of jus­tice, in the name of law and order, in the name of ret­ri­bu­tion, you … do not have the right to ask me, or any prison offi­cial, to bloody my…

Following the pro­vi­sions of Florida​’s recent­ly passed ​“Timely Justice Act,” the clerk of the state’s Supreme Court has iden­ti­fied 132 inmates on death row who are ​“war­rant ready,” based on their appeals. However, few­er than 20 of those inmates have begun the exec­u­tive clemen­cy process that must be com­plet­ed before an exe­cu­tion can take place. Once the gov­er­nor sig­nals that the clemen­cy process is over for an inmate, a death war­rant must be signed in 30 days,…

On October 10, the European Union com­mem­o­rat­ed World Day Against the Death Penalty, coin­cid­ing with events around the world chal­leng­ing the use of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Catherine Ashton, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, and Thorbjørn Jagland, Secretary General of the Council of Europe released a state­ment, not­ing, ​“Voices in favor of the death penal­ty with­in some parts of soci­ety, includ­ing in our con­ti­nent, show that…

Wyoming​’s Casper Star-Tribune recent­ly point­ed out why many fam­i­lies of mur­der vic­tims favor life-with­out-parole sen­tences over the death penal­ty . “[I]t may be a sur­prise that many fam­i­lies of mur­der vic­tims pre­fer the life with­out parole sen­tence, sim­ply because it puts the killer away for­ev­er with­out the decades-long court appeals that can accom­pa­ny a death sen­tence,” the paper wrote. The edi­to­r­i­al not­ed that there is only one per­son on the state’s death row, and…

Former Virginia attor­neys gen­er­al Mark L. Earley Sr. (pic­tured) and Anthony F. Troy recent­ly called for changes to the state’s death penal­ty based on a September report from the American Bar Association. Writing in the Washington Post, the past law enforce­ment lead­ers called for changes to the restric­tive laws gov­ern­ing the shar­ing of evi­dence pri­or to tri­als, amend­ments to jury instruc­tions so that jurors in death cas­es could better…