Publications & Testimony

A new Texas law requir­ing DNA test­ing of all bio­log­i­cal evi­dence pri­or to seek­ing the death penal­ty could reduce the num­ber of cap­i­tal cas­es. District Attorney Billy Byrd of Upshur County not­ed, ​“Essentially, every piece of evi­dence will have to be test­ed,” he said, which could delay tri­als more than a year. ​“Certainly, that will be the case. We will have to deal with cer­tain delays and longer waits,” he added, not­ing it is not uncom­mon for DNA evi­dence to…

A fed­er­al judge in Pennsylvania over­turned the con­vic­tion of a death row inmate, stat­ing he was ​“sen­tenced to die for a crime in all prob­a­bil­i­ty he did not com­mit.” U.S. District Court Judge Anita Brody found errors in all facets of the case, not­ing that ​“Improper police work char­ac­ter­ized near­ly the entire­ty of the inves­ti­ga­tion.” She described the pros­e­cu­tion as ​“a grave mis­car­riage of jus­tice,” and crit­i­cized the defense for fail­ing to ade­quate­ly inves­ti­gate the evidence.

A num­ber of promi­nent groups have filed sup­port­ive briefs with the North Carolina Supreme Court ask­ing that the prac­tice of racial bias in select­ing jurors for death penal­ty cas­es be end­ed. Former senior mil­i­tary offi­cials, fam­i­lies of mur­der vic­tims, and poten­tial jurors denied the oppor­tu­ni­ty to serve because of their race were among those argu­ing that a rul­ing under the state’s Racial Justice Act be upheld. In 2012, Judge Gregory Weeks held that Marcus Robinson’s…

The moth­ers of two teenagers who were killed in California are plead­ing with the District Attorney to refrain from seek­ing the death penal­ty against the man accused of the crimes. Leah Sherzer said her daugh­ter Bodhi (pic­tured) was an adher­ent of the teach­ings of Gandhi, who advo­cat­ed non-vio­lence. She said ​“Bodhi believed that the death penal­ty was wrong and that she would not want her case to be tried as a death penal­ty case.” Pam Thompson, the moth­er of the oth­er teenager…

A new book by Lori St John, The Corruption of Innocence: A Journey to Justice, recounts the author’s quest to save the life of Joseph O’Dell because of her strong belief in his inno­cence. St John describes the resis­tance she expe­ri­enced in try­ing to have crime-relat­ed items test­ed for DNA evi­dence, and the inter­na­tion­al sup­port that O’Dell attract­ed while on death row. O’Dell was exe­cut­ed in Virginia in…

Many states are seek­ing alter­na­tive ways to car­ry out exe­cu­tions by lethal injec­tion. Missouri announced it intends to use the anes­thet­ic propo­fol, though no oth­er state has used this drug and the drug’s man­u­fac­tur­er has strong­ly object­ed to such use. Officials in Texas and Ohio announced they will be chang­ing their exe­cu­tion pro­to­cols in the near future because their cur­rent exe­cu­tion drug (pen­to­bar­bi­tal) is expir­ing and is no longer…

Vicki Werneke is a fed­er­al pub­lic defend­er who rep­re­sent­ed Billy Slagle on Ohio​’s death row. She recent­ly wrote about her fren­zied work dur­ing the last week­end before Slagle’s death on August 4. She not­ed that he was only 18 and high­ly intox­i­cat­ed at the time of his crime. He had been remorse­ful ever since, try­ing to do some good with his life while on death row. Even the District Attorney of the coun­ty that pros­e­cut­ed him sup­port­ed a…

According to some experts, the process of repeat­ed­ly sub­mit­ting a per­son to immi­nent exe­cu­tion is a form of psy­cho­log­i­cal tor­ture that should be…

The Federal Bureau of Investigation recent­ly released the pre­lim­i­nary find­ings of its annu­al Uniform Crime Report for 2012. The final report will like­ly be pub­lished in October, but the ini­tial sta­tis­tics indi­cate the num­ber of mur­ders in the U.S. increased slight­ly by 1.5% from 2011. Three regions of the coun­try showed an increase in mur­ders, while one region declined. Murders in the Northeast decreased by 4.4%. The num­ber of mur­ders increased by 3.3% in the Midwest, 2.5% in…

In his new book, A Wild Justice, Evan J. Mandery (pic­tured) explores the polit­i­cal com­plex­i­ties and per­son­al­i­ties that led to the Supreme Court​’s deci­sions in Furman v. Georgia–strik­ing down the death penal­ty in 1972 – and Gregg v. Georgia–allow­ing it to resume in 1976. He describes in great detail the work of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and the gift­ed attor­neys, such as Anthony Amsterdam, who led the way through this…