Publications & Testimony

On February 7, fed­er­al District Court Judge James Brady stayed the exe­cu­tion of Christopher Sepulvado in Louisiana because the state failed to pro­vide details about its new exe­cu­tion pro­to­col. ​“Sepulvado has been try­ing to deter­mine what the pro­to­col is for years,” Judge Brady wrote, ​“and the State will not pro­vide this infor­ma­tion. The intran­si­gence of the State Defendants in fail­ing to pro­duce the pro­to­col requires the…

New infor­ma­tion on for­eign nation­als fac­ing the death penal­ty in the U.S. is now avail­able through Mark Warren of Human Rights Research. This DPIC page includes infor­ma­tion on 143 for­eign cit­i­zens from 37 coun­tries on state and fed­er­al death rows. California has the most (59 inmates), fol­lowed by Texas (24), and Florida (23). Many of these inmates were not informed of their right to con­tact their country’s…

A recent edi­to­r­i­al in the Great Falls Tribune in Montana out­lined some of the key prob­lems with the death penal­ty as the state leg­is­la­ture con­sid­ers its repeal. The edi­tors expressed con­cerns about the risks of mis­take with exe­cu­tions: ​“There is no way to take back an exe­cu­tion. That rea­son alone pro­vides good cause to elim­i­nate the death penal­ty in Montana.” The paper also not­ed that vic­tims’ fam­i­lies wait for decades for exe­cu­tions to be carried…

A recent arti­cle in the New York Times high­light­ed the sto­ry of Kirk Bloodsworth, who was the first death row inmate in the coun­try to be exon­er­at­ed by DNA test­ing. Bloodsworth, a for­mer Marine, was sen­tenced to death in 1984 for the rape and mur­der of a 9‑year-old girl out­side of Baltimore, Maryland. After DNA evi­dence led to his exon­er­a­tion and release in 1993, Bloodsworth began work­ing against cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment and for justice…

A forth­com­ing book, Fighting for Their Lives: Inside the Experience of Capital Defense Attorneys by Susannah Sheffer, explores the impact of the death penal­ty on defense attor­neys with clients on death row. Through inter­views with cap­i­tal defend­ers, the author exam­ines how attor­neys try to cope with the stress of rep­re­sent­ing clients fac­ing exe­cu­tion. Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking, said, ​“This is an impor­tant book. The death penalty’s…

A bipar­ti­san group of leg­is­la­tors in Montana will intro­duce a bill to replace the state’s death penal­ty with a sen­tence of life with­out parole. The spon­sors include two Republicans and two Democrats. A coali­tion of con­ser­v­a­tive law­mak­ers, reli­gious groups, and human rights groups sup­port the repeal of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Republican Sen. Matthew Rosendale (pic­tured), a mem­ber of Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty, said his stance…

In a new study in Harris County (Houston), Texas, crim­i­nol­o­gist Scott Phillips found sig­nif­i­cant racial and gen­der dis­par­i­ties in the appli­ca­tion of the death penal­ty under for­mer District Attorney Charles Rosenthal. Prof. Phillips of the University of Denver exam­ined homi­cides from 2001 to 2008 and found that death sen­tences were imposed on behalf of white vic­tims at 2.5 times the rate one would expect if the sys­tem were race neu­tral. Furthermore, death…

On January 30, a Texas judge stayed the exe­cu­tion of Larry Swearingen, sched­uled for February 27. Swearingen’s lawyers argued more time was required to com­plete DNA test­ing agreed to by the pros­e­cu­tion, which they believe will prove his inno­cence. This is the fourth such delay he has received. Five foren­sic experts have con­clud­ed that the decom­po­si­tion of the victim’s body shows she was killed while Swearingen was in jail on unre­lat­ed charges, thereby…

The the­o­ry of the death penal­ty is that pros­e­cu­tors select offend­ers who have com­mit­ted aggra­vat­ed mur­der and obtain death sen­tences for the most heinous offend­ers through a scrupu­lous tri­al with full due process. The real­i­ty in Pennsylvania is rad­i­cal­ly dif­fer­ent. Hundreds of inmates have been sen­tenced to death, but of the cas­es that have com­plet­ed the appeals process, 100% have been over­turned, most­ly because of errors in the con­vic­tion or sen­tenc­ing stages. (Three inmates…

Lawyers for Kimberly McCarthy, who is to be exe­cut­ed on January 29, have peti­tioned Texas Governor Rick Perry for a 30-day reprieve because of evi­dence of racial bias in the coun­ty in which she was tried. The District Attorney for Dallas County, Craig Watkins, has already called for pas­sage of a Racial Justice Act to address the bias he has found. Attorneys for McCarthy cit­ed sev­er­al stud­ies point­ing to racial dis­par­i­ty in the appli­ca­tion of the death…