Publications & Testimony

On March 6, the Maryland Senate passed SB 276 by a vote of 27 – 20. The bill replaces the death penal­ty with a sen­tence of life with­out parole for future offens­es. The bill appears like­ly to pass the House of Delegates, and Governor Martin O’Malley has pledged to sign it. The bill would not affect the inmates cur­rent­ly on death row. If passed by the House and signed into law, Maryland would become the sixth state in six years, and the 18^th over­all to aban­don capital punishment.

Missouri State Senator Gina Walsh recent­ly voiced her sup­port for Senate Bill 247, a bill to repeal the death penal­ty and replace it with life with­out parole. Sen. Walsh cit­ed the lack of deter­rence and unfair­ness as her pri­ma­ry con­cerns about cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. ​“It does­n’t deter crime. It dis­crim­i­nates against racial minori­ties and poor peo­ple who can’t afford attor­neys,” Walsh said. The bill was recent­ly heard in the Judiciary and Civil and Criminal Jurisprudence Committee…

On March 3, Up with Chris Hayes on MSNBC dis­cussed how eco­nom­ic con­cerns are shift­ing more atten­tion to the high costs of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Guest Bryan Stevenson (left), Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative, described how the mil­lions of dol­lars spent on the death penal­ty could be used else­where: ​“Maryland’s [death penal­ty repeal] bill actu­al­ly will give mon­ey and resources to the fam­i­lies of peo­ple who’ve lost loved ones.

DPIC is proud to present its lat­est pod­cast, fea­tur­ing award-win­ning author John Bessler dis­cussing the his­tor­i­cal roots of the death penal­ty and the cur­rent prob­lem of arbi­trari­ness in its appli­ca­tion. Bessler is a law pro­fes­sor at the University of Baltimore School of Law and author of Cruel and Unusual: The American Death Penalty and the Founders’ Eighth Amendment. Prof. Bessler shares his exper­tise on the sur­pris­ing resis­tance to capital…

On February 26, the House Judiciary Committee in Oregon held a hear­ing on repeal­ing the death penal­ty. Among those tes­ti­fy­ing was Frank Thompson, a for­mer super­in­ten­dent of the Oregon State Penitentiary, who over­saw the state’s last two exe­cu­tions. Thompson told the com­mit­tee the death penal­ty does not deter crime, fails to make the pub­lic safer, and places prison work­ers in an unten­able posi­tion: ​“Asking decent men and women to participate…

The Texas Tribune recent­ly pub­lished a six-part series exam­in­ing the plight of men­tal­ly ill defen­dants in the Texas crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem. The series focused par­tic­u­lar­ly on death penal­ty cas­es, includ­ing that of Andre Thomas, a man with a long his­to­ry of men­tal ill­ness. He pulled his own eye out in 2004, and lat­er explained that he did it because he kept see­ing his wife, whom he killed along with his chil­dren just days before. Thomas is among…

On February 25, the U.S Supreme Court agreed to review a deci­sion by the Kansas Supreme Court over­turn­ing the con­vic­tion and death sen­tence of Scott Cheever, who killed a sher­iff dur­ing a drug inves­ti­ga­tion. Cheever argued that his own drug use made it impos­si­ble for him to have killed with pre­med­i­ta­tion, a fac­tor nec­es­sary for a cap­i­tal mur­der con­vic­tion. The case had been pre­vi­ous­ly charged in fed­er­al court. In that case, the tri­al judge had ordered a…

A recent study of Colorado​’s death penal­ty con­clud­ed that the pun­ish­ment is applied so rarely and with­out clear statu­to­ry stan­dards as to ren­der it con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly unfair. Professors Justin Marceau (left) and Sam Kamin (cen­ter) from the University of Denver College of Law, and Professor Wanda Foglia (right) of Rowan University exam­ined mur­der con­vic­tions in the state from 1999 to 2010. The authors dis­cov­ered that, while the death penal­ty was an option in approx­i­mate­ly 92% of…

On February 21, the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee of Maryland approved (6 – 5) a bill to replace the death penal­ty with a sen­tence of life with­out parole. In pri­or years, the effort to end cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment was often blocked in this com­mit­tee. Senator Robert Zerkin was one leg­is­la­tor who changed his mind this year, ​“As heinous and awful as these indi­vid­u­als [on death row] are, I think it’s time for our state not to be involved in the appa­ra­tus of exe­cu­tions,” he said.

A recent col­umn in The Economist exam­ined the grow­ing num­ber of gov­er­nors and oth­er polit­i­cal lead­ers in the U.S. who are chal­leng­ing the death penal­ty. In Arkansas, Governor Mike Beebe (pic­tured) announced in January that he would sign a death penal­ty abo­li­tion bill if the leg­is­la­ture sent him one. In Maryland, Governor Martin O’Malley has led a push to repeal the death penal­ty. Colorado Governor John…