Publications & Testimony

A new book, ​“Where Justice and Mercy Meet: Catholic Opposition to the Death Penalty,” offers a com­pre­hen­sive dis­cus­sion of Catholic teach­ing on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. It explores a wide range of issues relat­ed to the death penal­ty, includ­ing racism, men­tal ill­ness, and eco­nom­ic dis­par­i­ties. The book is edit­ed by Trudy Conway and David Matzko McCarthy, both pro­fes­sors at Mount St. Mary’s University, and Vicki Schieber – the moth­er of a mur­der vic­tim. It includes a…

Arkansas Governor Mike Beebe recent­ly said he would sign leg­is­la­tion out­law­ing the death penal­ty if leg­is­la­tors were to send him such a bill. Beebe ran for gov­er­nor as a sup­port­er of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, but said the expe­ri­ence of sign­ing a death war­rant for the first time caused his think­ing on the issue to change. ​“It is an ago­niz­ing process, whether you’re for the death penal­ty or against the death penal­ty,” the gov­er­nor said. ​“Everybody can claim they’re for it until…

Robert Gleason is sched­uled to be the first per­son exe­cut­ed in the U.S. in 2013 on the night of January 16 in Virginia. At his tri­al, he told the court he want­ed the death penal­ty and has waived all his appeals since his con­vic­tion. He has cho­sen to be exe­cut­ed by elec­tro­cu­tion. Gleason’s lawyers main­tain he is severe­ly men­tal­ly ill and his men­tal capac­i­ty has dete­ri­o­rat­ed dur­ing his time on death row. He suf­fers from extreme para­noia, delusional thinking,…

On January 15 at a press con­fer­ence with lead­ers of the NAACP, Maryland’s Governor Martin O’Malley announced he will be mak­ing the repeal of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment a pri­or­i­ty in the upcom­ing leg­isla­tive ses­sion and will sub­mit a repeal bill to the leg­is­la­ture lat­er this week. Among the con­cerns about the death penal­ty expressed by the gov­er­nor were its high costs and the lack of any ben­e­fit to soci­ety: ​“Is it worth wast­ing tax­pay­er dol­lars on a pol­i­cy that does not work?” Senate…

A recent Gallup Poll mea­sured Americans’ abstract sup­port for the death penal­ty at 63%, the sec­ond-low­est lev­el of sup­port for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment since 1978, and a sig­nif­i­cant decline from 1994, when 80% of respon­dents were in favor of the death penal­ty. Gallup not­ed the results of the poll may have been affect­ed by the fact that it was con­duct­ed a few days after the shoot­ings in Newtown, Connecticut. In 2011 Gallup found 61% in sup­port of the death penal­ty, the lowest level…

The Death Penalty Information Center is pleased to offer a new resource page on death sen­tences in 2012. Seventy-eight (78) peo­ple were sen­tenced to death in 2012, the sec­ond low­est num­ber of sen­tences since the death penal­ty was rein­stat­ed in 1976. Of those sen­tenced, 3 were women; 49% were black; 40% were white. Four states (FL, CA, TX, and PA) were respon­si­ble for 65% of the death sen­tences, and only 9 coun­ties pro­duced over a third of the…

Jeffrey Havard (pic­tured) is fac­ing exe­cu­tion in Mississippi despite the fact that key evi­dence against him came from a med­ical exam­in­er who has been harsh­ly crit­i­cized by experts in his field. Havard was con­vict­ed of mur­der­ing his girlfriend’s 6‑month-old daugh­ter, based pri­mar­i­ly on the tes­ti­mo­ny of Steven Hayne, a state pathol­o­gist. Dr. Hayne tes­ti­fied he found symp­toms of ​“shak­en baby syn­drome” and sex­u­al abuse on the infant. Recent investigations into…

On January 8, the U.S. Supreme Court unan­i­mous­ly reject­ed indef­i­nite delays in the fed­er­al review of death penal­ty cas­es when inmates are men­tal­ly incom­pe­tent to assist their attor­neys. Writing for the Court, Justice Clarence Thomas said such appeals are usu­al­ly based on estab­lished facts, not requir­ing fur­ther input from the defen­dant. ​“Given the back­ward-look­ing, record-based nature of most fed­er­al habeas pro­ceed­ings, coun­sel can gen­er­al­ly pro­vide effective representation…

In his recent Sidebar col­umn, Adam Liptak, Supreme Court reporter for the New York Times, dis­cussed the plight that Alabama death row inmate Ronald Smith suf­fered at the hands of a drug-addict­ed lawyer and an unsym­pa­thet­ic court. In December, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit ruled that Smith could not chal­lenge his con­vic­tion and sen­tence because his lawyer failed to prop­er­ly file his post-conviction…