Publications & Testimony

On December 15 an Illinois appel­late court reversed Juan Rivera​’s (pic­tured) con­vic­tion for a mur­der com­mit­ted almost 20 years ago. The case is rem­i­nis­cent of many in Illinois that led to the state’s abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty in 2011. Rivera was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to life in prison for killing 11-year-old Holly Staker based on a con­fes­sion after near­ly 24 hours of near-con­s­tant inter­ro­ga­tion. No phys­i­cal evidence or…

On December 15, the Death Penalty Information Center released its latest report, ​“The Death Penalty in 2011: Year End Report,” on sta­tis­tics and trends in cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the past year. The report not­ed that new death sen­tences dropped to 78 in 2011, mark­ing the first time since cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment was rein­stat­ed in 1976 that the coun­try has pro­duced less than 100 death sen­tences in a year. It rep­re­sents a 75% decline since…

North Carolina Governor Bev Perdue vetoed the bill that would have repealed the state’s Racial Justice Act that was passed in 2009. The Act allows death row inmates to appeal their death sen­tences based on sta­tis­ti­cal stud­ies show­ing racial bias. In issu­ing the veto, the gov­er­nor, who sup­ports the death penal­ty, said,​“I am veto­ing Senate Bill 9 for the same rea­son that I signed the Racial Justice Act two years ago: it is sim­ply unac­cept­able for racial…

On December 5, the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board nar­row­ly vot­ed (3 – 2) to deny clemen­cy to death row inmate Gary Welch, the first per­son sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed in the coun­try in 2012. Welch was sen­tenced to death in 1996 for a mur­der that start­ed as a fight relat­ed to a drug deal. Welch said the vic­tim first stabbed him with a knife and he tried to defend him­self.​“To me, this was life or death. It was just luck that I sur­vived,” said Welch.​“My…

In a recent op-ed in Oregon’s Statesman Journal, for­mer Texas Governor Mark White (pic­tured) applaud­ed Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber​’s deci­sion to grant a reprieve to death row inmate Gary Haugen and to halt all exe­cu­tions in the state. Governor White wrote,​“I think Kitzhaber’s deci­sion is respectable and coura­geous. In Oregon, as in Texas, it is clear­ly with­in the con­sti­tu­tion­al author­i­ty of the gov­er­nor to grant reprieves and…

The fourth edi­tion of Robert Bohm’s​“Deathquest: An Introduction to the Theory and Practice of Capital Punishment in the United States,” is now avail­able through Anderson Publishing. The new edi­tion is updat­ed with dis­cus­sion of the lat­est research on the effec­tive­ness of the death penal­ty, the poten­tial for dis­crim­i­na­to­ry appli­ca­tion, costs, and new data on mis­car­riages of jus­tice, pub­lic opin­ion, and the influ­ences of reli­gion. This textbook…

On December 7, the American Bar Association released a report assess­ing Kentucky​’s sys­tem of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment and call­ing for a halt to exe­cu­tions in the state. The report was pre­pared by the Kentucky Assessment Team on the Death Penalty, which includ­ed law pro­fes­sors, for­mer state supreme court jus­tices, and prac­tic­ing attor­neys. The two-year study rec­om­mend­ed that the state tem­porar­i­ly sus­pend exe­cu­tions until serious issues…

According to a recent study by the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Virginia exe­cutes the high­est pro­por­tion of peo­ple sen­tenced to death of any state in the coun­try. Of the 149 death sen­tences hand­ed down through 2010, 108 have result­ed in an exe­cu­tion, a rate of about 72 per­cent. Virginia is sec­ond to Texas in the total num­ber of exe­cu­tions car­ried out since 1976, but Texas has exe­cut­ed less than half of those sen­tenced to death. In many states, less…

The U.S. Supreme Court recent­ly con­sid­ered Perry v. New Hampshire, a case ques­tion­ing the valid­i­ty of eye­wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny when the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion was made under unre­li­able cir­cum­stances. At the same time, years of sci­en­tif­ic study on the accu­ra­cy of human mem­o­ry are point­ing to the need for reform in the use of eye­wit­ness evi­dence in crim­i­nal cas­es. Barbara Tversky, a psy­chol­o­gy professor at…

The lat­est edi­tion of the Death Penalty Information Center’s series of pod­casts, DPIC on the Issues, is now avail­able for lis­ten­ing or down­load­ing. This pod­cast — the 17^th in the series — dis­cuss­es inter­na­tion­al views on the death penal­ty and how those views might affect cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the United States. The pod­cast includes dis­cus­sions about the role of inter­na­tion­al phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies in lethal injections being…