Publications & Testimony

The lat­est edi­tion of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund​’s Death Row USA shows a decrease of 31 inmates between January 1 and July 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 3,220 inmates in 2011. The per­cent­age of Latino inmates fac­ing exe­cu­tion, how­ev­er, has steadi­ly increased over the years. In 1991, Latinos made up 6% of the nation’s death…

(Winner: Silver Medal in the U.S. History cat­e­go­ry in the Independent Publisher Book Awards). A new book by Professor John D. Bessler, titled Cruel and Unusual: The American Death Penalty and the Founders’ Eighth Amendment, chal­lenges the con­ven­tion­al wis­dom that the coun­try’s founders were avid death penal­ty sup­port­ers, and explores their var­i­ous views on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Prof. Bessler dis­cuss­es how the…

Edwin Turner (pic­tured), a death row inmate in Mississippi, is sched­uled for exe­cu­tion on February 8. His attor­ney, Jim Craig, has peti­tioned the U.S. Supreme Court and Governor Phil Bryant for a reprieve, based in part on Turner’s men­tal ill­ness. Craig said,​“The Supreme Court has not decid­ed the ques­tion of whether a pris­on­er with a severe men­tal dis­or­der or dis­abil­i­ty which sig­nif­i­cant­ly impairs that person’s ability to…

Roger Hood (pic­tured), Professor Emeritus of Criminology at the University of Oxford, has pub­lished a report on offi­cial atti­tudes towards cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in China. Abolition of the Death Penalty: China in World Perspective out­lines the changes over the past decade on this issue with­in Chinese aca­d­e­m­ic and judi­cial com­mu­ni­ties. Hood observed that one of the strongest jus­ti­fi­ca­tions for the death penal­ty in China is​“the belief that…

A new video pro­duced by the American Civil Liberties Union fea­tures three North Carolina cit­i­zens who believe they were exclud­ed from serv­ing on juries in cap­i­tal cas­es because of their race. The video was released in con­junc­tion with the first court chal­lenge brought under North Carolina’s Racial Justice Act. The defen­dant, Marcus Robinson, is ask­ing his death sen­tence be com­mut­ed to life with­out parole because potential…

A recent edi­to­r­i­al in Nebraska​’s Journal Star urged sup­port for a bill to replace the death penal­ty with a sen­tence of life in prison. Among the rea­sons cit­ed for its posi­tion was the risk of exe­cut­ing an inno­cent per­son. The edi­to­r­i­al not­ed that advance­ments in DNA test­ing have shown the fal­li­bil­i­ty of the cur­rent sys­tem:​“Seventeen peo­ple who were on death row have been set free after DNA test­ing proved they were wrongly…

Tyrone Noling (pic­tured) is an inmate on Ohio​’s death row whose guilt has been called into doubt by a lack of phys­i­cal evi­dence, recant­i­ng wit­ness­es and refusal by the state to con­duct a DNA test. Andrew Cohen, writ­ing in a recent issue of The Atlantic, com­pared Noling’s case to that of Troy Davis, who was exe­cut­ed in Georgia in 2011, despite doubts about his guilt. Noling was con­vict­ed of the 1990 mur­ders of an elder­ly couple in…

DPIC is col­lect­ing infor­ma­tion on pend­ing leg­is­la­tion relat­ed to the death penal­ty. For exam­ple, at least nine states will con­sid­er bills to repeal the death penal­ty in 2012. In California, a coali­tion called Taxpayers for Justice has been col­lect­ing sig­na­tures to place a death penal­ty repeal ini­tia­tive on the bal­lot in November. On January 25, the Washington Senate Judiciary Committee held a pub­lic hear­ing on a bill to repeal the…

Relatives of a North Carolina inmate who bragged he had an easy life on death row recent­ly made clear that he is seri­ous­ly men­tal­ly ill and suf­fer­ing great­ly in his con­fine­ment. Danny Hembree Jr. had writ­ten a let­ter to his local news­pa­per taunt­ing­ly describ­ing his expe­ri­ence on death row as a life of leisure filled with col­or TV and naps. However, his sis­ter, Kathy Hembree Ledbetter, said he was a depressed man who had lashed out in hope­less­ness. She…

On January 18, the U.S. Supreme Court (7 – 2) ordered a new hear­ing in fed­er­al court for Cory Maples, an Alabama death row inmate whose state and fed­er­al appeals had been reject­ed by low­er courts because his lawyers quit and missed a crit­i­cal fil­ing dead­line. Writing for six of the Court’s Justices, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg high­light­ed the poor qual­i­ty of rep­re­sen­ta­tion offered by the state in death…