Publications & Testimony

The U.S. Department of Justice recently released its annual FBI Uniform Crime Report for 2012. The national murder rate remained approximately the same in 2012 as in 2011. The Northeast, the region with the fewest executions, had the lowest murder rate of any region, and its murder rate decreased 3.4% from the previous year. The South, which carries out the most executions of any region, again had the highest murder rate in 2012. The murder rate in the West remained about the same, while the…

Two events in November will examine the application of the death penalty from a variety of perspectives. On November 12, the American Bar Association will host the National Symposium on the Modern Death Penalty at the Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia. The conference will culminate the ABA’s eight-year effort to asses the death penalty in various states, using criteria for due process established by the ABA. Former President Jimmy Carter will be a featured speaker at the symposium, along with…

A recent editorial in the Akron Beacon Journal (Ohio) called for DNA testing in the death penalty case of Tyrone Noling. Noling has been on death row for 17 years. His conviction was based largely on the testimony of three friends who have since recanted their stories, claiming they were coerced by the prosecution. No physical evidence linked Noling to the crime, and he has passed a polygraph test. Noling is requesting the testing of additional evidence that could finally prove he was not…

Edwin J. Peterson, who served as the Chief Justice of Oregon’s Supreme Court for many years, recently recommended ending the state’s death penalty. Judge Peterson voted as a citizen to reinstate the death penalty in Oregon in 1978 and in 1984, but he now believes the capital punishment system is broken: “We have an inefficient, ineffective, dysfunctional system,” he said. “There is widespread dissatisfaction…. Our system has failed. Recognize it and repeal Oregon’s death penalty.” He noted that…

On October 24, New Hampshire state representative Renny Cushing (pictured) will introduce a bill to repeal the state’s death penalty. In addition to a bi-partisan group of co-sponsors, Cushing will be joined by Judge Walter Murphy — a former chief justice of the New Hampshire Superior Court and chair of the New Hampshire Death Penalty Study Commission; Ray Dodge — a former police chief; Bishop Peter Libasci — of the Catholic Diocese of Manchester; and Nancy Filiault — a murder victim family member.

On October 21, the U.S. Supreme Court accepted a new case, Hall v. Florida (No. 12 – 10882), to determine whether the Florida Supreme Court properly upheld the death sentence of a man whose IQ is just above the state’s standard for mental retardation. According to the state’s law, defendants with an IQ above 70 cannot be considered intellectually disabled, even though most states use a broader definition and there is a margin of error in such IQ tests. Freddie Lee Hall’s scores on three IQ tests…

Religious leaders from a variety of faiths spoke about their religious objections to the death penalty at a recent meeting in Columbus, Ohio. The meeting included leaders from several Christian denominations as well as Jewish leaders. Jack Chomsky, cantor at Congregation Tifereth Israel, said he hopes more of his colleagues will join him in speaking out about Jewish tradition, which opposes the enforcement of the death penalty. Jerald Freewalt, of the Office for Social Concerns at the Roman…

Michael Morton (pictured), who was released after 25 years in prison for a crime he did not commit, and Barry Scheck, co-director of the Innocence Project, called for reforms in Texas’s clemency process. In a recent op-ed in the Houston Chronicle, Morton and Scheck highlighted the case of Cameron Willingham, who was executed in 2004 despite serious doubts about his guilt. According to the authors, it is now understood that investigators who believed that Willingham committed arson were…

On October 16 the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in Kansas v. Cheever. One of the key defense witnesses in Scott Cheever’s death penalty trial testified that Cheever’s use of drugs impaired his judgement on the day of the crime. Prosecutors, in turn, called the physician who performed Cheever’s court-mandated mental exam, and he testified that Cheever was aware of what he was doing when he committed the crime, based on Cheever’s own statements to the doctor. The doctor’s testimony…