Publications & Testimony

A new book, ​“In this Timeless Time: Living and Dying on Death Row in America,” authors Bruce Jackson and Diane Christian explore the life of death row inmates in Texas and in oth­er states. Jackson and Christian cap­ture, through words and pic­tures, the dai­ly expe­ri­ences of inmates while also high­light­ing arbi­trary judi­cial process­es relat­ed to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking, said, ​“With absolute…

The lat­est edi­tion of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund​’s Death Row USA shows a decrease of 52 inmates between January 1 and October 1, 2011. Over the last decade, the total pop­u­la­tion of state and fed­er­al death rows has decreased sig­nif­i­cant­ly, from 3,682 inmates in 2000 to 3,199 inmates as of October 2011. California con­tin­ues to have the largest death row pop­u­la­tion (721), fol­lowed by Florida (402), Texas…

The U.S. Supreme Court grant­ed review in two cas­es from Arizona and Ohio to explore whether death penal­ty appeals can con­tin­ue if the defen­dant is men­tal­ly incom­pe­tent. Under the Court’s pri­or rul­ings in Ford v. Wainwright (1986) and in Atkins v. Virginia (2002), defen­dants can­not be exe­cut­ed if they are insane or intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled (men­tal­ly retard­ed). The new cas­es, Ryan v. Gonzalez and…

A recent study pub­lished by the Jesuit Social Research Institute of Loyola University point­ed to numer­ous prob­lems with Louisiana​’s death penal­ty. In par­tic­u­lar, the study found: — Per capi­ta, Louisiana has one of the high­est wrong­ful-con­vic­tion rates in the coun­try. More peo­ple have been exon­er­at­ed in Louisiana in the last ten years than exe­cut­ed. — Within Louisiana’s most aggres­sive death penal­ty dis­tricts, white vic­tims are disproportionately…

Retired District Judge Steven Becker, along with pros­e­cu­tors, defense lawyers, and reli­gious lead­ers, recent­ly tes­ti­fied at a leg­isla­tive hear­ing in Kansas in favor of a bill to repeal the death penal­ty. Judge Becker com­ment­ed, ​“As long as the death penal­ty is a part of our imper­fect sys­tem, there will always be the unac­cept­able pos­si­bil­i­ty of the exe­cu­tion of an inno­cent per­son.” Ron Wurtz, a fed­er­al pub­lic defend­er and a for­mer direc­tor of the state’s Death…

Edward Lee Elmore was released from prison in South Carolina on March 2 after agree­ing to a plea arrange­ment in which he main­tained his inno­cence but agreed the state could re-con­vict him of mur­der in a new tri­al. He had been on death row for near­ly 30 years after being con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in 1982 for the sex­u­al assault and mur­der of an elder­ly woman in Greenwood, South Carolina. The state’s case was based on evi­dence gath­ered from a ques­tion­able inves­ti­ga­tion and on testimony…

A new book by law pro­fes­sor Kenneth Williams of South Texas College of Law, titled Most Deserving of Death? An Analysis of the Supreme Court’s Death Penalty Jurisprudence, exam­ines whether the death penal­ty sys­tem real­ly pun­ish­es the worst offend­ers, as intend­ed by the Supreme Court’s approval of state laws. The book looks at issues such as jury selec­tion, inef­fec­tive assis­tance of coun­sel, inno­cence, and race, and how these issues reflect on who is sentenced to…

A recent arti­cle in the New York Times dis­cussed the most com­mon rea­sons why sus­pects under inter­ro­ga­tion con­fess to crimes they did not com­mit. The arti­cle, adapt­ed from ​“Rights at Risk: The Limits of Liberty in Modern America,” a forth­com­ing book writ­ten by David Shipler, observed an over­rep­re­sen­ta­tion of chil­dren, the men­tal­ly ill, those with intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ties, and those who are drunk or high among suspects who…

Charles Hoffman, an assis­tant defend­er in the Office of the Illinois State Appellate Defender, recent­ly wrote an op-ed in the Chicago Sun-Times, mark­ing a year since the death penal­ty was repealed in Illinois. Hoffman, who has argued more than 30 death penal­ty cas­es before the Illinois Supreme Court, says that repeal­ing the death penal­ty was the right choice for the state: ​“The right­ness of that deci­sion is more…