Publications & Testimony

On June 1, for­mer Tennessee death row inmate Erskine Johnson (pic­tured; now known as Ndume Olatushani) was freed after serv­ing near­ly 27 years in prison, 19 of which were spent on death row. Johnson, who main­tained his inno­cence through­out the process, was sen­tenced to death for the 1983 mur­der of a gro­cer in Memphis. In 2004, he was resen­tenced to life in prison after the state Supreme Court found that pros­e­cu­tors did not dis­close impor­tant infor­ma­tion to…

A recent edi­to­r­i­al in the New York Times called for greater atten­tion to be paid by courts to inmates on death row with severe men­tal ill­ness: ​“The death penal­ty sys­tem fails to take ade­quate account of severe men­tal ill­ness, whether at tri­al, at sen­tenc­ing or in post­con­vic­tion pro­ceed­ings,” the paper wrote. The edi­to­r­i­al praised Governor John Kasich of Ohio for grant­i­ng a two-week reprieve to Abdul Awkal on June 5 just pri­or to his sched­uled exe­cu­tion. However, the…

On May 29, the Connecticut Supreme Court over­turned the death sen­tence of Eduardo Santiago, one of eleven men who remained on the state’s death row despite the recent abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty for future crimes. Justice Lubbie Harper, Jr., (pic­tured) agreed with the majority’s rea­son­ing and con­clu­sions about Santiago, but also came to the con­clu­sion that the state’s death penal­ty as applied to those still on death row is…

A recent issue of The Angolite, a mag­a­zine pub­lished by prison inmates at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, high­lights the sto­ry of Joe Arridy, who was exe­cut­ed in 1939 in Colorado. Arridy was sen­tenced to death in 1937 for the mur­der and sex­u­al assault of a teenage girl. After his exe­cu­tion, facts point­ing to Arridy’s inno­cence grad­u­al­ly emerged. New evi­dence showed that he had been coerced into giv­ing a false con­fes­sion, that he was not…

A recent arti­cle in the Justice Quarterly by Professor James Acker (pic­tured) and Rose Bellandi of the University at Albany, New York, exam­ined whether there is an irrec­on­cil­able con­flict between recent reforms to pre­vent the exe­cu­tion of the inno­cent and the tra­di­tion­al goals of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. The authors stud­ied recent changes to Maryland’s death penal­ty statute that were designed to reduce the risk of wrong­ful exe­cu­tions while try­ing to main­tain the death penal­ty for the most…

In a June 1 op-ed in the Los Angeles Times, Columbia University law pro­fes­sor James Liebman (pic­tured) point­ed to his recent inves­ti­ga­tion of a like­ly inno­cent man exe­cut­ed in Texas to illus­trate the dan­ger of a ​“cheap­er and quick­er” death penal­ty. Such pro­pos­als for reform are ​“a ter­ri­ble and dan­ger­ous idea,” Liebman said. Based on his research into the pros­e­cu­tion of Carlos DeLuna, who was exe­cut­ed in 1989, DeLuna’s case ​“flew through the courts.”…

Gallup recent­ly released its Values and Beliefs sur­vey regard­ing American moral views on a vari­ety of social issues. The results revealed a sig­nif­i­cant decline in the per­cent­age of the pub­lic that finds the death penal­ty ​“moral­ly accept­able.” This year, only 58% of respon­dents said the death penal­ty is moral­ly accept­able, down from 65% last year. (Click on graph to enlarge.) This marks the low­est approval rat­ing for capital…

UPDATE2: Awkal was giv­en a two-week stay by Gov. Kasich to allow time for a men­tal com­pe­ten­cy deter­mi­na­tion. Abdul Awkal (pic­tured) is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed in Ohio on June 6, despite evi­dence of his severe men­tal ill­ness. Awkal lived through 8 years of a civ­il war in Lebanon, his home coun­try, before escap­ing to Michigan. He was sen­tenced to death for mur­der­ing his estranged wife and broth­er-in-law in 1992. There were…

The Death Penalty Information Center has pre­pared a sum­ma­ry of North Carolina v. Robinson, the first rul­ing issued under North Carolina’s Racial Justice Act. The opin­ion by Superior Court Judge Gregory Weeks on April 22, 2012, reduced Marcus Robinson’s (pic­tured) death sen­tence to life with­out parole. DPIC’s sum­ma­ry high­lights the sta­tis­ti­cal evi­dence of racial bias in elim­i­nat­ing poten­tial black jurors that led the court to rule in Robinson’s favor. The Court…