Publications & Testimony

Conservative com­men­ta­tor Bill O’Reilly (pic­tured) of Fox News recent­ly endorsed California’s Proposition 34, the bal­lot ini­tia­tive that would replace the death penal­ty with life in prison with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole. O’Reilly joined many con­ser­v­a­tive sup­port­ers of the mea­sure, includ­ing Ron Briggs, who led the cam­paign to rein­state California’s death penal­ty in 1978. In an op-ed about O’Reilly’s endorse­ment, Briggs dis­cussed the con­ser­v­a­tive argu­ment for repeal, call­ing the…

A new Los Angeles Times poll of reg­is­tered vot­ers in California showed a dra­mat­ic increase in sup­port of Proposition 34, a bal­lot mea­sure that would replace the death penal­ty with life with­out parole, sav­ing the state tens of mil­lions of dol­lars annu­al­ly. The sur­vey, con­duct­ed October 15 – 21, showed more respon­dents sup­port­ing repeal of the death penal­ty (45%) than those want­i­ng to keep it (42%) when they were giv­en infor­ma­tion about the measure’s…

The fam­i­ly of Cameron Todd Willingham announced they will peti­tion the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to grant him a posthu­mous par­don based on new evi­dence that has emerged since his exe­cu­tion in 2004. Willingham was sen­tenced to death for the mur­der of his three chil­dren in a house­fire in 1991. At his tri­al, inves­ti­ga­tors tes­ti­fied that Willingham had inten­tion­al­ly set the fire, but lat­er devel­op­ments in the sci­ence of fire inves­ti­ga­tion have led…

On October 23, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a last-minute fed­er­al appeals court stay-of-exe­cu­tion for John Ferguson. Ferguson had been sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed ear­li­er that day, but his lawyers filed a series of motions argu­ing he was men­tal­ly incom­pe­tent. In September, Florida Governor Rick Scott signed Ferguson’s death war­rant for October 16, but allowed time for a men­tal com­pe­ten­cy exam­i­na­tion. A series of stays and rever­sals shift­ed the date to October…

On October 17, the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights, a state agency that enforces civ­il rights, unan­i­mous­ly passed a res­o­lu­tion in favor of end­ing the death penal­ty. The Commission urged the Kentucky General Assembly to repeal the death penal­ty and Governor Steven Beshear to sign any such leg­is­la­tion that is brought before him. The res­o­lu­tion under­scored the unfair­ness of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment: “[S]tatistics con­firm that the impo­si­tion of the death penal­ty is…

A new book by Professor Robert Bohm of the University of Central Florida looks at death-penal­ty deci­sions by the U.S. Supreme Court pri­or to the mod­ern era of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment that began in 1968. In The Past As Prologue, Bohm exam­ines 39 Court deci­sions, cov­er­ing issues such as clemen­cy, jury selec­tion, coerced con­fes­sions, and effec­tive rep­re­sen­ta­tion. These ear­ly deci­sions have shaped mod­ern rul­ings on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, and the book pro­vides an analy­sis of…

George Gascon served for 30 years as a police offi­cer, includ­ing as a police chief in Arizona and California. He is cur­rent­ly the District Attorney of San Francisco. Although he for­mer­ly sup­port­ed the death penal­ty, he now believes it should be replaced with life with­out parole. In a recent op-ed in the Sacramento Bee, Gascon wrote: ​“I have had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to observe and par­tic­i­pate in the devel­op­ment and imple­men­ta­tion of pub­lic safe­ty policies…

On October 12, Tennessee Judge James Beasley Jr. (pic­tured) over­turned the con­vic­tion and death sen­tence of Michael Rimmer because crit­i­cal evi­dence, not pre­sent­ed at his tri­al, throws doubt on Rimmer’s guilt. The court ruled that Rimmer’s ​“over­bur­dened” tri­al lawyers repeat­ed­ly failed to uncov­er evi­dence that two oth­er men were seen at the vic­tim’s last loca­tion around the time of her dis­ap­pear­ance, and both had blood on their hands. One of the men was…

On October 12, Judge David Glant (state Circuit Court) reject­ed a request from attor­neys for Florida death row inmate John Ferguson (pic­tured) to halt his exe­cu­tion, despite acknowl­edg­ing that Ferguson has severe men­tal ill­ness. The judge wrote that Ferguson’s ​“doc­u­ment­ed his­to­ry of para­noid schiz­o­phre­nia” was ​“cred­i­ble and com­pelling,” and that ​“it is incon­ceiv­able” that Ferguson would have…