Publications & Testimony

A recent Boston Globe editorial called on U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder not to seek the death penalty for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the man accused of carrying out the bombing at the Boston Marathon. The editors said the lengthy death-penalty process would put the spotlight on the defendant to the detriment of the victims: “Years of proceedings, and their potential culmination in a death sentence, would also give Tsarnaev what he and his brother apparently sought: publicity and notoriety. Much…

On September 26, the Joint Task Force to Review the Administration of Ohio’s Death Penalty voted 15 – 2 to recommend a ban on death sentences for people with severe mental illness. The panel of legal experts was created by the Ohio Supreme Court and the Ohio State Bar Association and includes judges, attorneys, and legislators. Their proposal will be submitted with other recommendations to the governor and the General Assembly in 2014. Terry Russell, executive director of the National Alliance on…

Grave Injustice, a new book by Richard Stack, presents a critical examination of the death penalty through profiles of individuals who were executed but may have been innocent. Their stories are used to illustrate flaws in the death penalty, including faulty eyewitness identification, government misconduct, and ineffective representation. In examining these problems, Stack writes that the possible end of the death penalty “will not be based on its immorality…but on its poor track record… and…

Legislators in Kansas have said they may debate the repeal of the death penalty in 2014. Senate Vice President Jeff King said a recent session on other criminal justice issues indicated a need for a broader discussion of sentences for murder. Senator David Haley, who supports repeal of the death penalty, said, “I believe now is the time for a discussion among those in the Legislature who consider religion a main part of their public service to decide whether it’s necessary for a barbaric and…

One of the nation’s leading academic experts on the death penalty has written a new article describing how the controversy surrounding lethal injections has greatly intensified since the Supreme Court’s ruling on the subject in 2008 (Baze v. Rees). Deborah Denno, a law professor at Fordham University, analyzed over 300 court decisions in the last five years citing Baze. She found there have been more changes in lethal injection protocols in that time than in the last 30 years, some of which…

On September 19 the Ohio Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court’s dismissal of all charges against Thomas Keenan, a former death row inmate sentenced to death for a 1988 murder. The appeals court also barred the state from retrying Keenan. His co-defendant, Joseph D’Ambrosio, was fully exonerated in 2012 based on similar state misconduct to that found in Keenan’s trial. Keenan’s conviction was overturned by a U.S. District Court in 2012 because the state had withheld vital evidence from the…

Perspectives on Capital Punishment in America is a collection of short scholarly pieces on the death penalty system. The essays stem from the late Justice Thurgood Marshall’s belief that “death is different” and thus must be treated specially within the judicial system. The book examines issues such as wrongful convictions in capital cases, death qualification of jurors, the cost of the death penalty, felony murder rules, and the death penalty’s place in the Uniform Code of Military Justice. In…

A recent poll sponsored by the Boston Globe found that a significant majority of Boston residents favor life without parole over the death penalty for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the Boston Marathon bombing suspect. Fifty-seven percent (57%) of respondents supported a sentence of life without parole if Tsarnaev is convicted, compared with only 33% who favored the death penalty. Sixty-one (61) percent of Democrats and 49% of Republicans (a plurality) supported a sentence of life without parole. The…

On September 18, the American Bar Association’s Death Penalty Due Process Review Project released its latest report, focusing on the fairness and accuracy of Texas’s death penalty system. The report found: “In many areas, Texas appears out of step with better practices implemented in other capital jurisdictions, fails to rely upon scientifically reliable methods and processes in the administration of the death penalty, and provides the public with inadequate information to understand and…