Publications & Testimony

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…