Publications & Testimony

On March 27, a fed­er­al District Court held that for­eign-man­u­­fac­­tured sodi­um thiopen­tal was improp­er­ly approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use in exe­cu­tions. Judge Richard Leon (pic­tured) of the District Court of the District of Columbia ordered any cor­rec­tion­al depart­ments in pos­ses­sion of the drug to return it to the FDA. The rul­ing grant­ed sum­ma­ry judg­ment in favor of a law­suit filed by death row inmates in Arizona,…

On March 27, Amnesty International released its annu­al sur­vey on the use of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment world­wide, titled Death Sentences and Executions 2011. The report illus­trat­ed that the use of the death penal­ty has con­tin­ued to decline around the world. At the end of 2011, there were 140 coun­tries con­sid­ered abo­li­tion­ist in law or prac­tice, while only 20 coun­tries were known to have put pris­on­ers to death in 2011. The United States…

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,…

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),…

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.

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…

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…

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch called upon lead­ers in Missouri to make numer­ous changes to the state’s death penal­ty in light of a recent American Bar Association report pro­duced by a bipar­ti­san pan­el of lawyers, judges, pros­e­cu­tors and law pro­fes­sors. The edi­to­r­i­al high­light­ed many of the ABA’s rec­om­men­da­tions, includ­ing​“improv­ing evi­dence stan­dards, increas­ing pub­lic defend­er fund­ing and creating more…

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…

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