Publications & Testimony

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.

Officials in Indiana recent­ly dis­cussed how rarely the death penal­ty is applied in the state and the issues that rais­es regard­ing its pur­pose. Professor Joel Schuum of the McKinney School of Law in Indiana chaired a study by the American Bar Association that found​“only a few of Indiana’s mur­der cas­es result in a pros­e­cu­tor seek­ing a death sen­tence, few­er still result in the impo­si­tion of a death sen­tence by a jury or judges, and only a hand­ful over the…

Texas death-row inmate Andre Thomas has been diag­nosed with para­noid schiz­o­phre­nia, and audi­to­ry hal­lu­ci­na­tions drove him to gouge out both of his eyes. Nevertheless, pros­e­cu­tors still believe he…

One For Ten is a new col­lec­tion of doc­u­men­tary films telling the sto­ries of inno­cent peo­ple who were on death row in the U.S. The first film of the series is on Ray Krone, one of the 142 peo­ple who have been exon­er­at­ed and freed from death row since 1973. Krone was released from Arizona​’s death row in 2002 after DNA test­ing showed he did not com­mit the mur­der for which he was sen­tenced to death 10 years ear­li­er. Krone was…

Two new reports on the death penal­ty are avail­able from the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) of the Organization of American States recent­ly released a report con­tain­ing excerpts from the most impor­tant death-penal­­ty deci­sions issued by the IACHR in the past fif­teen years, includ­ing cas­es from Barbados, Cuba, Guatemala, Guyana, Grenada, Jamaica, Bahamas, Trinidad and Tobago, and the United States. The…

Jerry Givens spent 17 years as the cor­rec­tion­al offi­cer in charge of Virginia​’s elec­tro­cu­tions. During his tenure, he car­ried out 62 exe­cu­tions. He now strong­ly opposes the…

On February 19, Georgia is sched­uled to exe­cute Warren Hill, a death row inmate who has been diag­nosed with men­tal retar­da­tion (intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty). Over a decade ago, in Atkins v. Virginia, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled it uncon­sti­tu­tion­al to exe­cute the men­tal­ly retard­ed. However, Hill con­tin­ues to face exe­cu­tion because Georgia requires proof of retar­da­tion beyond a rea­son­able doubt, the strictest…

In a recent op-ed, the father of slain Colorado cor­rec­tions offi­cer Eric Autobee (pic­tured) explained why he no longer sup­port­ed the death penal­ty and is work­ing for its repeal. Writing in the Pueblo Chieftain, Bob Autobee, him­self a vet­er­an cor­rec­tions offi­cer, said the pur­suit of the death penal­ty in his son’s case caused an​“unspeak­able emo­tion­al toll” on his fam­i­ly. He wrote,​“Given what…

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…

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…