Publications & Testimony

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…

Commentary from nation­al­ly syn­di­cat­ed colum­nist E.J. Dionne (pic­tured) and the New York Times reflect­ed on the chang­ing state of the death penal­ty in the U.S. in light of recent devel­op­ments. Dionne cit­ed the repeal of the death penal­ty in Connecticut as an exam­ple of a ​“remark­able piv­ot in the pol­i­tics of the death penal­ty, the pre­mier issue on which an over­whelm­ing con­sen­sus favor­ing what’s tak­en to be the con­ser­v­a­tive side has…

In the lat­est edi­tion of the Death Penalty Information Center’s pod­casts, Professor Michael H. Fox, direc­tor of the Japan Innocence and Death Penalty Research Center, dis­cuss­es the cur­rent state of the death penal­ty in Japan. Prof. Fox com­pares pub­lic opin­ion on the death penal­ty in Japan and the U.S., explains some of the unique aspects of Japan’s crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem, and dis­cuss­es the prospects for change. Click here to lis­ten to this latest…

In a recent op-ed in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, for­mer U.S. President Jimmy Carter called for the end of the death penal­ty. President Carter cit­ed the risk of wrong­ful exe­cu­tions, the lack of evi­dence of deter­rence, and the costs of pros­e­cu­tion as rea­sons to abol­ish cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. He wrote, “[T]here has nev­er been any evi­dence that the death penal­ty reduces cap­i­tal crimes or that crimes increased when exe­cu­tions stopped. Tragic mis­takes are preva­lent. DNA…

A new book pub­lished in elec­tron­ic for­mat, The Death Penalty Failed Experiment: From Gary Graham to Troy Davis in Context by Diann Rust-Tierney, exam­ines the prob­lem of arbi­trari­ness in the death penal­ty since its rein­state­ment in 1976. Through an analy­sis of the cas­es of Gary Graham and Troy Davis, the author argues that race, wealth and geog­ra­phy play a more sig­nif­i­cant role in deter­min­ing who faces cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment than the facts of the crime…

In an op-ed writ­ten for the 25^th anniver­sary of the U.S. Supreme Court​’s deci­sion in McCleskey v. Kemp, nation­al­ly acclaimed death penal­ty expert James Acker (pic­tured) called for a reassess­ment of how race is affect­ing death penal­ty deci­sions. Prof. Acker ques­tioned the Court’s refusal to find bias in the wake of the strong sta­tis­ti­cal evi­dence pre­sent­ed in that case. He wrote, ​“The time has sure­ly come for a sober reassessment of…

On April 25, 2012, Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy (pic­tured) signed into law a bill that replaces the death penal­ty with life with­out parole. At that time, Connecticut became the fifth state in five years, and the 17^th over­all, to do away with cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Governor Malloy, who once sup­port­ed the death penal­ty, offered the fol­low­ing state­ment: ​“My posi­tion on the appro­pri­ate­ness of the death penal­ty in our crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem evolved over a long peri­od of time.

On April 20, the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles reduced the death sen­tence of Daniel Greene (pic­tured) to life in prison with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole. The Board had stayed Greene’s exe­cu­tion, which was set for April 19, in order to fur­ther con­sid­er his clemen­cy peti­tion. Greene’s peti­tion includ­ed let­ters from sev­er­al mem­bers of the Taylor County com­mu­ni­ty, where the mur­der occurred, urg­ing the Board to spare Greene’s life. Among the letters was…