Publications & Testimony

Two recent reports from Ohio highlighted the decline in the use of capital punishment in that state. On March 30, the Ohio Attorney General’s Office released its annual report on capital punishment. The Attorney General’s report noted three new death sentences, one commutation, and one execution in Ohio in 2014, down from the state’s peak of 17 death sentences in both 1995 and 1996. It also reported that Ohio juries have imposed four or fewer death sentences in each of the last four years. On…

Attorneys for Texas death row inmate Max Soffar, who is dying of liver cancer, continue to seek a reversal of his case, even though judicial action — if it comes — may be too late. Soffar maintains his innocence in the 1980 murders of three people during a bowling alley robbery. The sole evidence against Soffar is a confession he signed after three days of unrecorded interrogation that is inconsistent with the facts of the case and, he maintains, is false. The confession also does not match the…

Of the 12 death sentences handed down in Louisiana in the last 5 years, 8 have come from Caddo Parish. Caddo is also among the 2% of U.S. counties responsible for 56% of people on death row. With a population of just 257,000, Caddo Parish has sent 16 people to death row, the second highest of any parish in Louisiana. Two prosecutors, one of whom is under investigation for prosecutorial misconduct, are responsible for 6 of the recent death sentences. Hugo Holland, who handled two cases that…

California’s death row — the largest in the country — is expanding beyond the capacity of San Quentin State Prison to hold it. In response, Governor Jerry Brown has proposed a $3.2 million expenditure to make about 100 new cells available to incarcerate death row inmates. California has not executed any death-row prisoner since 2006. Court rulings have barred the state from using its lethal injection protocol and, last July, in the case of Jones v. Chappell, a federal district court declared…

Anthony Ray Hinton (pictured, l.) has been exonerated after spending nearly 30 years on Alabama’s death row. He will be released on April 3. Hinton was convicted of the 1985 murders of two fast-food restaurant managers based upon the testimony of a state forensic examiner that the bullets in the two murders came from a gun found in Hinton’s house. The prosecutor, who had a documented history of racial bias, said he could tell Hinton was guilty and “evil” just by looking at him. Hinton was…

Former prison warden, Frank Thompson, has urged repeal of Delaware’s death penalty. In an op-ed for The News Journal of Delaware, the former warden, who has personally overseen two executions, describes “the immeasurable burden that th[e execution] process places on correctional officers” and the trauma experienced by correctional officers who must carry out executions. Thompson says, “Many of us who have taken part in this process live with nightmares, especially those of us who have…

Executions around the world declined by 22% last year, according to Amnesty International’s 2014 annual report on death sentences and executions. The report — released on April 1 — indicates that an estimated 607 people were executed worldwide in 2014, compared to 778 in 2013. The global totals do not include executions in China, where data on the death penalty is considered a state secret. On a regional level, Amnesty reported notable declines in Sub-Saharan Africa, where both the total number…

On March 30, the American Pharmacists Association (APhA) adopted a resolution discouraging pharmacist participation in executions. The House of Delegates of the 62,000 member organization passed the policy, which states, “The American Pharmacists Association discourages pharmacist participation in executions on the basis that such activities are fundamentally contrary to the role of pharmacists as providers of health care.” William Fassett, professor emeritus of pharmacotherapy at Washington…

On Monday, March 30, the U.S. Supreme Court granted review of three Kansas death penalty cases and heard oral argument in a Louisiana case that presented questions on the role of the federal courts in determining whether a state prisoner who faces the death penalty has intellectual disability. In the cases of Kansas v. Reginald Carr, Kansas v. Jonathan Carr, and Kansas v. Sidney Gleason, the Court granted review of the Kansas Supreme Court’s decisions overturning the defendants’ death sentences…

In a new article for the University of Chicago Law Review, Professors Carol S. Steiker (left) of the University of Texas School of Law and Jordan M. Steiker (right) of Harvard Law School examine the racial history of the American death penalty and what they describe as the U.S. Supreme Court’s “deafening silence” on the subject of race and capital punishment. They assert that the story of the death penalty “cannot be told without detailed attention to race.” The Steikers’ article recounts the…