Publications & Testimony

In one of the most com­pre­hen­sive inves­ti­ga­tions ever under­tak­en about the exe­cu­tion of a pos­si­bly inno­cent defen­dant, Professor James Liebman and oth­er researchers at Columbia University Law School have pub­lished a ground­break­ing report on the case of Carlos DeLuna (pic­tured), who was exe­cut­ed in Texas in 1989. This ​“Anatomy of a Wrongful Execution” is being pub­lished today (May 15) in Columbia’s Human Rights Law Review. Prof.

UPDATE: Execution stayed by Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (May 14). Steven Staley (pic­tured) is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed in Texas on May 16, despite the like­li­hood that he would be deemed incom­pe­tent for exe­cu­tion if he was not being forcibly med­icat­ed under court order. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that it is uncon­sti­tu­tion­al to exe­cute an inmate who is men­tal­ly incom­pe­tent. In a non-death penal­ty con­text, the Court has also held that it is permissilble…

Al Jazeera recent­ly released a video of an inter­view with for­mer Oklahoma death-row inmate Michael Selsor (pic­tured). Selsor was the most recent per­son exe­cut­ed in the U.S. and prob­a­bly the inmate who served the longest time between con­vic­tion and exe­cu­tion of any­one in U.S. his­to­ry. He was first sen­tenced to death in 1976 for mur­der and was impris­oned over 36 years pri­or to his exe­cu­tion on May 1, 2012. Although his sentence was…

Records obtained by the Bay Area News Group in California show that the appeal costs for the last two men exe­cut­ed in the state were $1.76 mil­lion. At that rate, the cost of car­ry­ing out the exe­cu­tions of the 724 inmates still on death row could exceed $700 mil­lion if the death penal­ty is not repealed in November. Records show that the state and fed­er­al appeals for Clarence Ray Allen, the old­est and most recent death row inmate exe­cut­ed in the state, cost more than $761,000.

Use of the death penal­ty has decreased in South Carolina, and some state offi­cials are point­ing to the high costs and uncer­tain­ty of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment as rea­sons for this decline. The state has had only one exe­cu­tion in the past three years, and the size of death row has declined almost 30% since 2005. No one was sen­tenced to death in 2011. Prosecutor David Pascoe ini­tial­ly planned to seek the death penal­ty for a moth­er who killed her two chil­dren, but lat­er changed his…

A new study con­duct­ed by researchers at Duke University found that the racial com­po­si­tion of jury pools has a pro­found effect on the prob­a­bil­i­ty of a black defen­dant being con­vict­ed. According to the study led by Professor Patrick Bayer of Duke, juries formed from all-white jury pools in Florida con­vict­ed black defen­dants 16 per­cent more often than white defen­dants. In cas­es with no black poten­tial jurors in the jury pool, black defen­dants were con­vict­ed 81 per­cent of the…

Recently pub­lished his­tor­i­cal research led by Professor Austin Sarat (pic­tured) of Amherst College exam­ines the way grue­some exe­cu­tions were report­ed in the media in the late 19^th and ear­ly 20^th cen­turies. Prof. Sarat’s study found that news­pa­pers gen­er­al­ly pre­sent­ed two com­pet­ing nar­ra­tives in their cov­er­age: ​“a sen­sa­tion­al­ist nar­ra­tive, which played up the grue­some­ness of botched execution[s], and an oppos­ing, recu­per­a­tive nar­ra­tive, which sought to dif­fer­en­ti­ate [the] law’s violence from…

Controversies sur­round­ing the lethal drugs used in U.S. exe­cu­tions con­tin­ue to arise in many states. Documents obtained by the Associated Press reveal the secre­tive process in which the Delaware Department of Corrections obtained the drugs nec­es­sary for the its lethal injec­tion process. Delaware offi­cials solicit­ed the help of the state’s Economic Development Director, Alan Levin, in obtain­ing lethal injec­tion drugs after its pre­vi­ous sup­ply expired in 2005. Levin, the former…