Publications & Testimony

West of Memphis is a fea­ture-length doc­u­men­tary by Academy-Award win­ner Peter Jackson, offer­ing a pen­e­trat­ing look into the mur­der con­vic­tions and even­tu­al free­ing of the West Memphis Three. Jackson has called it his ​“most impor­tant film.” Three teenagers, Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley, were con­vict­ed of killing three young boys in West Memphis, Arkansas, in 1993. Echols was sen­tenced to death…

In a recent op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle, death penal­ty schol­ar Franklin Zimring sug­gest­ed that the close (52 – 48%) vote in November on California​’s Proposition 34 to end cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment means the repeal effort is far from over. Zimring, a law pro­fes­sor at the University of California, Berkeley, wrote, ​“For decades, it has been assumed that the death penal­ty was the third rail of California pol­i­tics …. Measured against that rep­u­ta­tion, the…

On December 6, Bobby Tarver, who had spent 30 years on Alabama​’s death row, final­ly had his death sen­tence reduced to life with­out parole by a state judge because of his intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty. Tarver was Mobile County’s longest-serv­ing death row inmate, hav­ing been con­vict­ed in 1982 of mur­der­ing a taxi cab dri­ver. Last September, a fed­er­al judge over­ruled state court opin­ions and held that Tarver could not be exe­cut­ed because of his men­tal retar­da­tion, thus…

On December 5, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals grant­ed (5 – 3) Cathy Lynn Henderson a new tri­al based on recent sci­en­tif­ic devel­op­ments about the death of a baby who had been in her care. At one point, Henderson had been two days from exe­cu­tion. The appeals court accept­ed the fac­tu­al find­ings of a dis­trict judge who ruled ear­li­er this year that no rea­son­able juror would have con­vict­ed Henderson if pre­sent­ed with new sci­en­tif­ic dis­cov­er­ies relat­ed to the…

On November 28, the University of Nebraska host­ed a dia­logue on the death penal­ty with J. Kirk Brown (left), Nebraska’s Solicitor General, and Professor Michael Radelet (right) of the University of Colorado. Mr. Kirk was the state’s coun­sel of record for all of its exe­cu­tions since 1978. Prof. Radelet is a well-known death penal­ty expert, researcher, and the author of sev­er­al works on inno­cence and the death penal­ty. The dis­cus­sion was…

Richard Stokley (pic­tured) is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed in Arizona on December 5 for rape and mur­der. Stokley’s accom­plice, Randy Brazeal, was released from prison in 2011, despite DNA test­ing show­ing he was like­ly guilty of the same crime as Stokley. In 1991, Brazeal turned him­self in to author­i­ties and claimed that Stokley had held him hostage while com­mit­ting the crime. However, sub­se­quent DNA test­ing revealed that Brazeal like­ly par­tic­i­pat­ed in the crime…

A for­mer death row inmate with intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ties has lan­guished in the Texas prison sys­tem for over 30 years despite hav­ing no valid crim­i­nal con­vic­tion. Jerry Hartfield, an illit­er­ate man with an IQ of 51, had his cap­i­tal con­vic­tion over­turned in 1980 because the jury at his tri­al had been improp­er­ly select­ed. A Texas appeals court ordered a new tri­al for Hartfield, but that tri­al has nev­er hap­pened. In 1983, then-Governor Mark White attempt­ed to…

On November 29, the Colosseum in Rome, Italy, was illu­mi­nat­ed in hon­or of Connecticut’s repeal of the death penal­ty in April of this year. The event fea­tured for­mer death row inmate Shujaa Graham of California and George Kain of the Connecticut Network to Abolish the Death Penalty. Five states in the past five years have abol­ished the death penal­ty: Connecticut, Illinois, New Mexico, New Jersey, and New York. The pro­gram also com­mem­o­rat­ed the 10^th World Day of Cities Against…

A recent edi­to­r­i­al in The Oregonian, one of the state’s major news­pa­pers, endorsed a bill in the upcom­ing leg­isla­tive ses­sion that could result in the repeal of the death penal­ty. The bill, to be intro­duced by Rep. Mitch Greenlick, would begin the process of amend­ing the state’s con­sti­tu­tion through a ref­er­en­dum as ear­ly as November 2014. The edi­tors wrote, ​“5 states — New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Illinois and New Mexico — have aban­doned the death penal­ty in…