Publications & Testimony

Retired District Judge Steven Becker, along with pros­e­cu­tors, defense lawyers, and reli­gious lead­ers, recent­ly tes­ti­fied at a leg­isla­tive hear­ing in Kansas in favor of a bill to repeal the death penal­ty. Judge Becker com­ment­ed, ​“As long as the death penal­ty is a part of our imper­fect sys­tem, there will always be the unac­cept­able pos­si­bil­i­ty of the exe­cu­tion of an inno­cent per­son.” Ron Wurtz, a fed­er­al pub­lic defend­er and a for­mer direc­tor of the state’s Death…

Edward Lee Elmore was released from prison in South Carolina on March 2 after agree­ing to a plea arrange­ment in which he main­tained his inno­cence but agreed the state could re-con­vict him of mur­der in a new tri­al. He had been on death row for near­ly 30 years after being con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in 1982 for the sex­u­al assault and mur­der of an elder­ly woman in Greenwood, South Carolina. The state’s case was based on evi­dence gath­ered from a ques­tion­able inves­ti­ga­tion and on testimony…

A new book by law pro­fes­sor Kenneth Williams of South Texas College of Law, titled Most Deserving of Death? An Analysis of the Supreme Court’s Death Penalty Jurisprudence, exam­ines whether the death penal­ty sys­tem real­ly pun­ish­es the worst offend­ers, as intend­ed by the Supreme Court’s approval of state laws. The book looks at issues such as jury selec­tion, inef­fec­tive assis­tance of coun­sel, inno­cence, and race, and how these issues reflect on who is sen­tenced to…

A recent arti­cle in the New York Times dis­cussed the most com­mon rea­sons why sus­pects under inter­ro­ga­tion con­fess to crimes they did not com­mit. The arti­cle, adapt­ed from ​“Rights at Risk: The Limits of Liberty in Modern America,” a forth­com­ing book writ­ten by David Shipler, observed an over­rep­re­sen­ta­tion of chil­dren, the men­tal­ly ill, those with intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ties, and those who are drunk or high among sus­pects who…

Charles Hoffman, an assis­tant defend­er in the Office of the Illinois State Appellate Defender, recent­ly wrote an op-ed in the Chicago Sun-Times, mark­ing a year since the death penal­ty was repealed in Illinois. Hoffman, who has argued more than 30 death penal­ty cas­es before the Illinois Supreme Court, says that repeal­ing the death penal­ty was the right choice for the state: ​“The right­ness of that deci­sion is more…

A recent edi­to­r­i­al in The Washington Post high­light­ed ongo­ing prob­lems with Maryland​’s death penal­ty despite leg­is­la­tion passed in 2009 meant to reform the sys­tem. According to the edi­to­r­i­al, ​“the legislature’s reform fixed noth­ing; if any­thing, it cod­i­fied a sys­tem even more arbi­trary than the one it replaced. Now the nature of the evi­dence, rather than the bar­bar­i­ty of the crime, is the crit­i­cal fac­tor. So a mur­der con­vic­tion based on DNA evidence…

On March 5, the U.S. Supreme Court unan­i­mous­ly ruled that California inmate Kenneth Clair can­not have his con­vic­tion over­turned because he dis­agreed with the defense strat­e­gy used by his attor­neys. Clair was rep­re­sent­ed by court-appoint­ed attor­neys because he could not afford to hire his own. The dis­pute arose after Clair com­plained his attor­neys were ignor­ing evi­dence found by the pros­e­cu­tion that might prove his inno­cence. In 2005, he filed…

Today, in lieu of a news update, we are mak­ing a spe­cial request of our read­ers. In order to con­tin­ue our efforts to pro­vide the most com­pre­hen­sive, up-to-date infor­ma­tion on the death penal­ty, we need your help. Please con­sid­er mak­ing a con­tri­bu­tion to this impor­tant work. Whether you are an edu­ca­tor, an attor­ney, a jour­nal­ist, or a con­cerned cit­i­zen, you may have found val­ue in the infor­ma­tion we pro­vide. By donat­ing today, you help DPIC’s work…

The American Bar Association has released a report on Missouri​’s cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem after a two-year study of the state’s death penal­ty. The study was con­duct­ed by legal experts, includ­ing for­mer and cur­rent judges, lawyers, and law pro­fes­sors. Douglas Copeland, a mem­ber of the assess­ment team and for­mer pres­i­dent of the Missouri Bar, said ​“We iden­ti­fied sub­stan­tial prob­lems with the death penal­ty in Missouri. Our group unan­i­mous­ly agreed there are key…