Publications & Testimony

In 2011, the Chief Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court appointed a blue-ribbon Commission to review the state’s death penalty and to make recommendations for reform. On April 10, the Commission prepared to announce 56 recommendations for changing the death penalty, including: ► Require higher standards for proving guilt if a death sentence is sought (such as DNA evidence) ► Bar the death penalty for those who suffer from ​“serious mental illness” ► Lessen the number of crimes eligible for the…

A recent study by researchers at Cornell Law School found that the gender of the murder victim may influence whether a defendant receives the death penalty. Using data from 1976 to 2007 in Delaware, the study found that in cases with female victims, 47.1% resulted in death sentences, while in those involving male victims, only 32.3% were sentenced to death. The researchers looked at a number of factors other than the victim’s gender that might have affected sentencing decisions, including the…

In Ford v. Wainwright (1986), the U.S. Supreme Court banned the execution of inmates who were insane. In a dissenting opinion, Justice Rehnquist and Chief Justice Burger warned that the majority decision ​“offers an invitation to those who have nothing to lose…to advance entirely spurious claims of insanity.” A new study has examined cases since 1986 in which death row inmates filed claims of mental incompetence and found that the deluge of spurious claims has not materialized. Of the 1,307…

Defending a death penalty case costs about four times as much as defending a case where the death penalty is not sought, according to a new study by the Kansas Judicial Council. Examining 34 potential death-penalty cases from 2004 – 2011, the study found that defense costs for death penalty trials averaged $395,762 per case, compared to $98,963 per case when the death penalty was not sought. Costs incurred by the trial court showed a similar disparity: $72,530 for cases with the death penalty…

Ken Rose has represented people condemned to death in the south for 30 years and recently described his experience with this ​“flawed system:” ​“The system reflects our biases and blind spots,” he said. ​“Just like us, it is susceptible to error and prejudice and, sometimes, an indiscriminate desire for revenge. Like our country, it favors the privileged and takes the heaviest toll on the poor and mentally ill.” As an example, Rose told the story of one of his clients, Leo Edwards, whose…

Two recent reports released in Ohio show a decline in the use of the death penalty, with one of the reports raising concerns about the fairness of the system. The number of death-penalty cases filed in Ohio in 2013 was the lowest number in over 30 years. The number of capital indictments was down 28% from 2012 and 63% from 2011, according to a report from Ohioans to Stop Executions, ​“The Death Lottery: How Race and Geography Determine Who Goes to Ohio’s Death Row.” Ohio had 4 death sentences in…

On March 27, a court in Japan suspended the death sentence and ordered the release and retrial of Iwao Hakamada, who had been imprisoned for 48 years, mostly on death row. The 78-year-old man is the world’s longest-serving death row inmate. Presiding judge Hiroaki Murayama said, ​“It is unbearably unjust to prolong detention of the defendant any further. The possibility of his innocence has become clear to a respectable degree.” Hakamada was convicted of the 1966 murder of the family for whom he…

In a case in which the state’s Attorney General had asked for an execution date of March 27, the Mississippi Supreme Court instead threw out Michelle Byrom’s murder conviction and death sentence and ordered a new trial just four days later. The case was plagued with numerous problems, including inadequate representation, critical evidence not presented to the jury, confessions by another defendant, and the prosecution’s lack of confidence in its own story of what actually happened. In its order…

Click to enlarge Further analysis of a recent poll by the Pew Research Center found that support for the death penalty was significantly lower among some racial and ethnic minorities than for the general population. More Hispanics oppose the death penalty (50%) than support it (40%), and the same is true of African Americans, with only about a third (36%) favoring capital punishment and a majority (55%) opposing it. Democrats are about evenly split, with 45% in favor and 47% opposed, while 71%…

Click to enlarge Amnesty International recently released its annual report on capital punishment around the world, noting, ​“Developments in the worldwide use of the death penalty in 2013 confirmed that its application is confined to a small minority of countries.” As illustrated in the chart at left, over the past decade there has been an increase in the number of countries abolishing the death penalty and a decrease in countries carrying out executions. Because executions in China remain a…