Publications & Testimony

The pros­e­cu­tor who helped secure the death sen­tence of John Eley (pic­tured) and one of the pre­sid­ing judges who sen­tenced him to death recent­ly asked the Ohio Parole Board to rec­om­mend clemen­cy instead. Former Mahoning County pros­e­cu­tor Gary Van Brocklin told the state parole board that Eley should be spared from exe­cu­tion because the type of crime he com­mit­ted is no longer usu­al­ly pros­e­cut­ed as a death penal­ty case and is…

Two researchers at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, Professors Justin Wolfers (pic­tured) and Betsey Stevenson, recent­ly explained why decades of stud­ies have failed to show a reli­able deter­rent effect from the death penal­ty. The authors cit­ed a 2012 report from the National Academy of Sciences, con­clud­ing that the deter­rence stud­ies of the past 30 years ​“should not influ­ence pol­i­cy judg­ments about cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment.” Wolfers…

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…