Publications & Testimony

In a new doc­u­men­tary, titled Into the Abyss: A Tale of Life, A Tale of Death, renowned doc­u­men­tar­i­an Werner Herzog (pic­tured) exam­ines the case of a triple homi­cide in Conroe, Texas, explor­ing why peo­ple kill and why states car­ry out exe­cu­tions. The film fea­tures inti­mate con­ver­sa­tions with many of those involved in the case, includ­ing 28-year-old death row inmate Michael Perry, who was exe­cut­ed shortly after…

On November 7, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to grant review to Texas inmate Duane Buck. Buck sought a new sen­tenc­ing tri­al because of tes­ti­mo­ny sug­gest­ing he posed a greater dan­ger to soci­ety because he is black. During his tri­al, psy­chol­o­gist Dr. Walter Quijano told the court that Buck’s race increased the like­li­hood of his future dan­ger­ous­ness. Three of the Justices on the Court (Alito, Scalia and Breyer), which had…

John Garvey (pic­tured), pres­i­dent of the Catholic University of America, recent­ly dis­cussed the evo­lu­tion of Catholic teach­ing on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Garvey said that while ear­ly Catholic Church lead­ers sup­port­ed the use of the death penal­ty, the pre­vail­ing con­tem­po­rary teach­ing on the sub­ject clear­ly calls for​“con­dem­na­tion of exe­cu­tions.” Reflecting on the recent exe­cu­tions of Lawrence Brewer in Texas and…

For some Supreme Court Justices and inter­na­tion­al courts, the exten­sive time that many inmates spend on U.S. death rows has raised con­cerns about cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment. In a recent dis­sent regard­ing the exe­cu­tion of Manuel Valle in Florida, Justice Stephen Breyer argued that Valle should not be exe­cut­ed because the 33 years he already spent on death row amount­ed to a vio­la­tion of the Eighth Amendment. In an ear­li­er dis­sent in 1999, Justice Breyer…

William Sessions (pic­tured), the for­mer Director of the FBI, and Mark White, for­mer Governor of Texas, called on Texas to delay the November 9 exe­cu­tion of Hank Skinner and allow access to untest­ed DNA evi­dence. Skinner, who has always main­tained his inno­cence, has repeat­ed­ly peti­tioned for test­ing of sev­er­al items from the crime scene that con­tain DNA. The items — a windbreaker jacket…

The U.S. Attorney for Western New York has filed more poten­tial fed­er­al death penal­ty cas­es than most of his col­leagues across the coun­try. Since tak­ing office in March 2010, William J. Hochul, Jr. has peti­tioned the Justice Department to seek the death penal­ty against 24 peo­ple, more than his coun­ter­parts in cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, Miami or cities in Texas. Only two oth­er fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors, both from more pop­u­lous districts than…

In a recent edi­to­r­i­al in the Fort Wayne, Indiana, Journal Gazette, the paper wel­comed the pro­pos­al by the state’s Attorney General to recon­sid­er the death penal­ty in light of its enor­mous costs. At a Criminal Justice Summit held at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller asked state offi­cials to look at the death penal­ty from a prac­ti­cal per­spec­tive. He cit­ed a recent cap­i­tal trial in…

A recent review of death penal­ty cas­es in Pennsylvania con­duct­ed by the Philadelphia Inquirer (see ear­li­er DPIC post) has revealed a pat­tern of inef­fec­tive assis­tance of coun­sel lead­ing to exten­sive delays and rever­sals of death sen­tences. When the cas­es are lit­i­gat­ed a sec­ond time, now with more com­pe­tent rep­re­sen­ta­tion, they fre­quent­ly do not result in a death sen­tence. Prosecutors have called the sys­tem a great…

Even as death penal­ty cas­es con­tin­ue to absorb tens of mil­lions of tax­pay­er dol­lars, state bud­get cuts are affect­ing courts, pub­lic defenders,and dis­trict attor­ney’s offices across the coun­try, rais­ing con­cerns about delays and inad­e­quate rep­re­sen­ta­tion. Reduced bud­gets are impact­ing all aspects of the court sys­tem, includ­ing civ­il and crim­i­nal cas­es, and delay­ing death penal­ty cas­es. Prosecutors are forced to ignore some vio­la­tions, judges are delaying…

The Philadelphia Inquirer recent­ly con­duct­ed a review of death penal­ty appeals in Pennsylvania span­ning three decades and found a pat­tern of inef­fec­tive assis­tance by defense attor­neys. More than 125 cap­i­tal mur­der tri­als in the Pennsylvania, includ­ing 69 in Philadelphia, have been reversed or sent back by state and fed­er­al courts after find­ing that mis­takes by the defense attor­ney deprived the defen­dant of a fair tri­al. These…