Publications & Testimony

The Dallas Morning News used the recent repeal of the death penalty in Maryland as an occasion to advocate for death-penalty reform in Texas. The editors commented on the overall impropriety of capital punishment: “At best, the death penalty is selectively used state-supported retribution, which has no place in a civilized society.” The editorial supported six pending bills aimed at improving the fairness of the death penalty. One bill would bar the use of informant testimony in death penalty…

On March 12, Delaware State Senator Karen Peterson introduced a bill to repeal the state’s death penalty and replace it with life without parole. “I don’t think the state should be in the business of killing people,” Peterson said. “It just is so bizarre to me that we would say to somebody that what you did was so horrible, that now we’re going to do it.” Senate Minority Leader Gary Simpson, a Republican, is also backing the bill. The bill is retroactive, meaning that it would also replace the…

Former Manhattan District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau has joined two other former prosecutors in filing an amicus brief in the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of William Kuenzel, an Alabama death row inmate sentenced to death in 1988. New evidence emerged in 2010 raising doubts about his guilt. According to Morgenthau’s brief, two witnesses who testified against Kuenzel gave entirely different accounts that did not identify him when they first met with authorities. One of the witnesses admitted…

Christopher Price is on death row in Alabama for the murder of a church minister in 1991. His current attorneys have asked the courts to enforce the ruling of Gideon v. Wainwright, the landmark 1963 decision guaranteeing the right to counsel for all defendants. According to Price’s appeal, his trial attorney failed to provide even a rudimentary defense during a penalty trial that lasted only 30 minutes. The attorney neglected to “investigate his background for potential mitigation evidence,” to…

On March 15, the Maryland House of Delegates passed (82 – 56) a bill to abolish the death penalty for future crimes. The same bill passed the Maryland Senate on March 6. Governor Martin O’Malley has pledged to sign the bill, which will make Maryland the 18^th state to abolish the death penalty, and the sixth to do so in the last six years. O’Malley said, “I’ve felt compelled to do everything I could to change our law, repeal the death penalty, so that we could focus on doing the things that…

A new study regarding the use of the death penalty in Harris County, Texas, was released in conjunction with the filing of an appeal by Harris County death row inmate, Duane Buck. The research was conducted by Professor Raymond Paternoster of the University of Maryland, who examined over 500 murder cases in the county. The study found that, in cases with circumstances similar to Buck’s and during the time in which he was tried, the Harris County District Attorney’s Office sought the death…

Virginia’s death row population has significantly decreased from a peak of 57 inmates in 1995 to 8 presently. Only two inmates have been added to death row in nearly five years. David Bruck (pictured), director of the Virginia Capital Case Clearinghouse at Washington and Lee University School of Law, remarked, “The process has largely ground to a halt. That is a huge development.” He suggested the decline in death sentences is due to a greater acceptance of alternative punishments and the…

The Michigan Committee Against Capital Punishment has published a collection of over 40 years of testimony, brochures, and other information by attorney and death-penalty expert Eugene Wanger. The collection begins with the resolution from Michigan’s 1962 constitutional convention banning capital punishment in the state. It includes Wanger’s testimony at numerous hearings opposing bills attempting to reinstate the death penalty, as well as brochures and short articles. The bound and boxed…

Leland Anderson served as a judge in Jefferson County, Colorado, sentencing one man to death while sparing another. In a recent op-ed in The Denver Post, Anderson wrote how those cases affected him: “Those cases continue to haunt me even to this day, many years after having signed off on the decisions with a trembling heart.” He said his views on the death penalty have changed since he was on the bench: “I have had much time to reflect on the experience of judging another person’s life or…