Publications & Testimony

The parents of James Holmes recently explained that their son is severely mentally ill and asked he be spared the death penalty. Holmes is accused of killing numerous people at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado. Robert and Arlene Holmes said they were aware of the great harm their son caused, noting, “We are always praying for everyone in Aurora. We wish that July 20, 2012, never happened.” They also recognized the sentiments among some that their son be executed: “We have read postings on…

On December 16, 2014, a South Carolina judge vacated the conviction of George Stinney, Jr., the youngest person executed in the U.S. in the last century. Judge Carmen Mullen wrote: “I can think of no greater injustice than the violation of one’s Constitutional rights which has been proven to me in this case.” Stinney, a black, 14-year-old boy, was convicted by an all-white jury of killing two young white girls. Police said Stinney confessed to the crime, but no confession was ever produced.

Whether the death penalty will be sought in a murder may depend more on the budget of the county in which it is committed than on the severity of the crime, according to several prosecutors. A report by the Marshall Project found that the high costs of capital cases prevent some district attorneys from seeking the death penalty. “You have to be very responsible in selecting where you want to spend your money,” said Stephen Taylor, a prosecutor in Liberty County, Texas. “You never know how long…

On December 18, DPIC released its annual report on the latest developments in capital punishment, “The Death Penalty in 2014: Year End Report.” In 2014, 35 people were executed, the fewest in 20 years. Death sentences dropped to their lowest level in the modern era of the death penalty, with 72 people sentenced to death, the smallest number in 40 years. Just seven states carried out executions, and three states (Texas, Missouri, and Florida) accounted for 80% of the executions. The number of…

In a series of articles analyzing Pennsylvania’s death penalty, the Reading Eagle found that taxpayers have spent over $350 million on the death penalty over a period in which the state has carried out just three executions, all of inmates who dropped their appeals. Using data from a Maryland cost study, which concluded that death penalty cases cost $1.9 million more than similar cases in which the death penalty was not sought, the newspaper estimated that the cases of the 185 people on…

On December 11 District Judge Darlene Byrne ruled that the source of Texas’ lethal injection drugs is a matter of public record, and the state should release the information. Texas has been obtaining pentobarbital from an unnamed compounding pharmacy. The decision resulted from a suit filed earlier this year on behalf of death row inmates, two of whom have since been executed. Texas had been open about the source of its execution drugs until May, when Attorney General Greg Abbott decided that…

Attorneys for several inmates in Oklahoma have asked a federal court to stay their executions and presented new accounts of the botched execution of Clayton Lockett (pictured) as evidence the state’s execution procedure is unconstitutionally cruel. The recent filing included statements describing the execution from the warden, an attending paramedic, and a victims’ services advocate who witnessed the execution. Warden Anita Trammell called the execution, “a bloody mess,” and said, “I was kind…

On December 11, an Arizona appeals court dismissed charges against Debra Jean Milke and barred retrial. Milke spent 22 years on death row on chargers of arranging the 1989 murder of her 4‑year-old son. She was the first woman sentenced to death in Arizona since 1932. In 2013, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9^th Circuit overturned Milke’s conviction because the prosecution had withheld evidence about misconduct committed by their primary witness, Phoenix Detective Armando Saldate, who…

In an op-ed for the Boston Globe, three legal experts, including retired federal judge and Harvard Law School professor Nancy Gertner (pictured), wrote about the benefits of allowing accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzokhar Tsarnaev to plead guilty in exchange for a sentence of life without parole. If Tsarnaev is convicted, they write, the penalty phase of his capital trial will put all attention on Tsarnaev’s life and background, rather than on the victims of the bombing. “Tsarnaev’s lawyers are…

A forthcoming article by University of Miami law professor Scott E. Sundby in the William & Mary Bill of Rights journal examines the “unreliability principle” established by the U.S. Supreme Court in Atkins v. Virginia and Roper v. Simmons. The article defines the unreliability principle as, “if too great a risk exists that constitutionally protected mitigation cannot be properly comprehended and accounted for by the sentencer, the unreliability that is created means that the death penalty…