Publications & Testimony

On December 19, Dallas District Court Judge Teresa Hawthorne held that Texas​’s death penal­ty was uncon­sti­tu­tion­al because it could lead to death sen­tences that were arbi­trar­i­ly sought and obtained. In rul­ing in favor of a defense motion, Judge Hawthorne acknowl­edged that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and oth­er courts have upheld the statute, but judges still have the oblig­a­tion to review the law based on its cur­rent prac­tice. The judge found parts of Texas’s statute…

The Chief Justice of California ​‘s Supreme Court, Tani Cantil-Sakauye, recent­ly called for a re-eval­u­a­tion of the state’s death penal­ty sys­tem, say­ing the sys­tem is not work­ing and ​“not effec­tive.” In her first pub­lic com­ments on the issue since she became head of the the state’s high­est court, Justice Cantil-Sakauye point­ed to the present predica­ment for the state, say­ing the death penal­ty sys­tem need­ed ​“struc­tur­al change, and we don’t have the mon­ey to cre­ate the kind of…

(Bureau of Justice Statistics, Capital Punishment, 2010 — Statistical Tables, December 20, 2011). For infor­ma­tion on the death penal­ty in 2011, see DPIC’s Year End Report. See Death Row, Sentencing and…

Two for­mer Supreme Court Justices in Kentucky and the President of the American Bar Association called for a sus­pen­sion of exe­cu­tions in the state until its death penal­ty sys­tem is reformed. Writing in the Louisville Courier-Journal, the Justices stat­ed, ​“The list of prob­lem­at­ic cas­es is stag­ger­ing, and review of the sys­tem is deeply trou­bling. Fairness, impar­tial­i­ty and effec­tive­ness of coun­sel have been under­mined by seri­ous flaws that reveal sys­temic prob­lems in…

On December 20, the European Commission announced tough new restric­tions on the export of drugs that could be used for exe­cu­tions in the United States. The EC added pen­to­bar­bi­tal and sodi­um thiopen­tal — two drugs on which almost all American exe­cu­tions cur­rent­ly depend — to its list of restrict­ed prod­ucts that are tight­ly con­trolled on the grounds that they may be used for cru­el and inhu­man treat­ment or pun­ish­ment. ​“The deci­sion today con­tributes to the wider EU efforts to…

On December 16, Marin County Superior Court Judge Faye D’Opal reject­ed California​’s new lethal injec­tion pro­to­cols because cor­rec­tions offi­cials failed to con­sid­er a one-drug exe­cu­tion method now in prac­tice in oth­er states. Judge D’Opal also crit­i­cized the state for ignor­ing require­ments of the law regard­ing the revi­sion of offi­cial pro­ce­dures. A fed­er­al court has also imposed a stay of exe­cu­tions while it is review­ing the state’s 3‑drug lethal injec­tion pro­ce­dures. In 2006,…

On December 14, Ohio Supreme Court Justice Paul Pfeifer (pic­tured) tes­ti­fied before the state’s House Criminal Justice Committee, urg­ing law­mak­ers to over­turn the death penal­ty law he helped write as a state sen­a­tor 30 years…

On December 15 an Illinois appel­late court reversed Juan Rivera​’s (pic­tured) con­vic­tion for a mur­der com­mit­ted almost 20 years ago. The case is rem­i­nis­cent of many in Illinois that led to the state’s abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty in 2011. Rivera was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to life in prison for killing 11-year-old Holly Staker based on a con­fes­sion after near­ly 24 hours of near-con­stant inter­ro­ga­tion. No phys­i­cal evi­dence or wit­ness­es con­clu­sive­ly linked him…

On December 15, the Death Penalty Information Center released its lat­est report, ​“The Death Penalty in 2011: Year End Report,” on sta­tis­tics and trends in cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the past year. The report not­ed that new death sen­tences dropped to 78 in 2011, mark­ing the first time since cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment was rein­stat­ed in 1976 that the coun­try has pro­duced less than 100 death sen­tences in a year. It rep­re­sents a 75% decline since 1996, when there were…