Publications & Testimony

Texas Representative Harold Dutton recent­ly filed a bill that would pre­vent pros­e­cu­tors in death penal­ty cas­es from using tes­ti­mo­ny from infor­mants or from alleged accom­plices of the defen­dant if the tes­ti­mo­ny was obtained in exchange for lenien­cy, immu­ni­ty or oth­er spe­cial pro­vi­sions. If passed, the bill would make Texas among the first states to ban such tes­ti­mo­ny. Alexandra Natapoff, a pro­fes­sor at Loyola of Los Angeles Law School, said, ​“The use of crim­i­nal infor­mants is…

When Maryland​’s leg­is­la­ture again con­venes in January, it is like­ly to con­sid­er a bill to repeal the death penal­ty. Governor Martin O’Malley (pic­tured) has spon­sored such leg­is­la­tion in the past and may do so again. O’Malley has called the death penal­ty ​“inher­ent­ly unjust” and said resources spent on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment could be bet­ter used else­where. Maryland has not car­ried out an exe­cu­tion or had a new death sen­tence since 2005. Executions are cur­rent­ly on hold because the…

A recent edi­to­r­i­al in the New York Times called for the end of the death penal­ty in New Hampshire. The edi­to­r­i­al high­light­ed the case of Michael Addison, who is the only pris­on­er on the state’s death row. Addison was sen­tenced to death in 2008 for fatal­ly shoot­ing a police offi­cer. The state Supreme Court recent­ly held hear­ings for Addison, who is seek­ing a new tri­al or sen­tenc­ing hear­ing because the orig­i­nal pro­ceed­ings were unfair.

On November 19, 110 coun­tries vot­ed for a res­o­lu­tion at the United Nations General Assembly call­ing for a world­wide mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions as a step towards the abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty. The vote marked record sup­port for the res­o­lu­tion com­pared to pre­vi­ous years. Among the coun­tries sup­port­ing the res­o­lu­tion were the European Union nations, Australia, Brazil, South Africa and Israel. The United States, Japan, China, Iran, India, North Korea, Syria and Zimbabwe were…

A new book, Race, Rape, and Injustice: Documenting and Challenging Death Penalty Cases in the Civil Rights Era, recounts the fas­ci­nat­ing sto­ry of twen­ty-eight law stu­dents who trav­eled through­out the South in the 1960s to gath­er data about the use of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in rape cas­es. They found the death penal­ty was used almost exclu­sive­ly against black defen­dants accused of rap­ing white women. The book was large­ly writ­ten by Barrett Foerster, one of the stu­dents, and then completed…

According to Gary Syphus of the Legislative Fiscal Analyst’s Office in Utah, seek­ing the death penal­ty costs the state an addi­tion­al $1.6 mil­lion per inmate from tri­al to exe­cu­tion com­pared to life-with­out-parole cas­es. Syphus offered this esti­mate to the Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Interim Committee of the Utah leg­is­la­ture on November 14. Republican state rep­re­sen­ta­tive Steve Handy had asked for an exam­i­na­tion of the state and local gov­ern­ment costs asso­ci­at­ed with…

New Hampshire State Representative Renny Cushing (pic­tured), whose father and broth­er-in-law were mur­dered, is one of many mem­bers of the state’s leg­is­la­ture who sup­ports repeal of the death penal­ty. ​“Everyone is mov­ing away from the death penal­ty. It’s clear New Hampshire isn’t in love with the death penal­ty. We haven’t exe­cut­ed any­one since 1939,” Cushing said. New Hampshire’s only death row inmate cur­rent­ly has an appeal before the state Supreme Court. A death penalty…

The Texas Attorney General’s Office has released par­tial results of DNA test­ing long request­ed by attor­neys for death row inmate Hank Skinner. Although the results are incom­plete and reveal the pres­ence of anoth­er unknown per­son, the state is claim­ing the tests con­firm Skinner’s involve­ment in the mur­der of his live-in girl­friend, Twila Busby, and her two adult sons in 1993. Skinner had been seek­ing addi­tion­al DNA test­ing since 2000 even while exe­cu­tion dates…

A Texas Court of Inquiry is set to review alle­ga­tions of pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct by for­mer District Attorney Kenneth Anderson, who with­held crit­i­cal infor­ma­tion in a first-degree mur­der case in Williamson County. Although pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct has played a role in many wrong­ful con­vic­tions, includ­ing death penal­ty cas­es, such an over­sight hear­ing is unusu­al. Sam Millsap, the for­mer District Attorney of Bexar County, Texas, said, ​“I’d love to be able to tell you I am the…