Publications & Testimony

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A new report from Murder Victims’ Families for Human Rights col­lects the sto­ries of fam­i­lies who have had a loved one mur­dered who was in law enforce­ment. The fam­i­lies dis­cuss the pres­sure they faced to demand the death penal­ty as pun­ish­ment, their efforts to pre­vent more vio­lence, and their evolv­ing views on the death penal­ty. Kathy Dillon, whose father was mur­dered in 1974 while on duty as a New York State Trooper, said, “[I]n the case of my father’s mur­der, the death…

As an anes­the­si­ol­o­gist, Dr. Joel Zivot applied some of the same drugs in oper­at­ing rooms as are used in exe­cu­tions in the U.S. He admired their life-sav­ing qual­i­ties for patients, but bri­dled at their use in tak­ing lives. Writing recent­ly in USA Today, he cau­tioned against this ​“poi­so­nous” use of med­i­cines, say­ing, ​“States may choose to exe­cute their cit­i­zens, but when they employ lethal injec­tion, they are not prac­tic­ing med­i­cine. They are usurp­ing the tools and…

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…