Publications & Testimony

When Vicki Schieber’s (pic­tured) daugh­ter, Shannon, was mur­dered in Philadelphia in 1998, she and her fam­i­ly felt enor­mous grief. ​“Losing a loved one to mur­der,” she recent­ly wrote in the Philadelphia Inquirer, ​“is a tragedy of unimag­in­able pro­por­tions. At first, my hus­band and I did­n’t know how we could go on with our lives.” Nevertheless, because of their beliefs, ​“we did not want the man who mur­dered our daugh­ter to be put to death.” Now she is speak­ing out in…

A fed­er­al appeals court upheld the death sen­tence of Georgia inmate Robert Holsey (pic­tured), despite the fact that Holsey’s lead lawyer drank a quart of vod­ka every day dur­ing the tri­al and was about to be sued for steal­ing client funds. The attor­ney him­self tes­ti­fied that he ​“prob­a­bly shouldn’t have been allowed to rep­re­sent any­body.” The court assumed the attor­ney’s incom­pe­tence, but gave great def­er­ence to the Georgia Supreme Court’s opin­ion that his poor per­for­mance did…

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A recent study by Sherod Thaxton (pic­tured) of the University of Chicago Law School exam­ined the effect of the threat of the death penal­ty on plea bar­gain­ing. Using sta­tis­ti­cal analy­sis of charg­ing and sen­tenc­ing data in Georgia between 1993 and 2000, Thaxton found that the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a death sen­tence increased the like­li­hood of a plea bar­gain: ​“deter­ring two out of every ten death noticed defen­dants from pur­su­ing a tri­al.” However, the low­er num­ber of tri­als does not off­set the high…

In his week­ly col­umn, Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia voiced the Catholic Church’s ongo­ing oppo­si­tion to the death penal­ty in the U.S. and called for clemen­cy for Pennsylvania death row inmate Terrance Williams. ​“We don’t need to kill peo­ple to pro­tect soci­ety or pun­ish the guilty. And we should nev­er be eager to take anyone’s life,” the Archbishop said. He addressed the needs of mur­der vic­tims’ fam­i­lies, say­ing ​“Turning away from…

Douglas Stankewitz, a Native American, was the first per­son sent to California’s death row after cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment was rein­stat­ed in 1978. Thirty-four years lat­er, he remains there as his appeals con­tin­ue. His con­vic­tion was over­turned in 1982 because he had not received a men­tal com­pe­ten­cy hear­ing, despite find­ings by court-appoint­ed doc­tors that he was men­tal­ly unsta­ble and brain-dam­aged as a result of child­hood abuse. His sec­ond tri­al is now being appealed on the grounds…

The Sacramento Bee announced in an edi­to­r­i­al that it is revers­ing its his­toric 150-year sup­port of the death penal­ty and endors­ing the repeal of California​’s cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment law. The edi­to­r­i­al called the state’s death penal­ty an ​“illu­sion,” which is rarely car­ried out, despite the large num­ber of death sen­tences. It cit­ed the high cost of the death penal­ty as one of the rea­sons for sup­port­ing repeal, not­ing, ​“California has already spent billions…

A new book by Larry Koch, Colin Wark and John Galliher dis­cuss­es the sta­tus of the death penal­ty in the U.S. in light of recent leg­isla­tive activ­i­ty and court deci­sions. In The Death of the American Death Penalty, the authors exam­ine the impact of fac­tors such as eco­nom­ic con­di­tions, pub­lic sen­ti­ment, the role of elites, the media, and pop­u­la­tion diver­si­ty on the death penal­ty debate. The book high­lights the recent abo­li­tion deci­sions in New York, New Jersey, New…

On September 6, Michael Keenan (pic­tured) was released from prison after spend­ing about 20 years on Ohio​’s death row. Keenan and co-defen­dant Joseph D’Ambrosio, who was exon­er­at­ed in April, were con­vict­ed of the 1988 mur­der of Tony Klann. Keenan’s first con­vic­tion was over­turned in 1994, but he was retried and again sen­tenced to death. His sec­ond con­vic­tion was over­turned ear­li­er in 2012 due to pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct. Prosecutors with­held evi­dence that…

In Pennsylvania–a state that has recent­ly dealt with high-pro­file cas­es of child sex­u­al abuse – one vic­tim of such attacks is now fac­ing exe­cu­tion. On September 6, more than two dozen child advo­cates joined for­mer jurors, the victim’s wid­ow, as well as for­mer pros­e­cu­tors and judges in urg­ing Governor Tom Corbett and the Board of Pardons to grant clemen­cy to death row inmate Terrance Williams (pic­tured). Williams suf­fered years of phys­i­cal and…