Publications & Testimony

The Chief Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court, Maureen O’Connor, has ini­ti­at­ed a review of the state’s death penal­ty to deter­mine if changes should be made and ask­ing, ​“Is the sys­tem we have the best we can do?” To con­duct the study, Justice O’Connor called for a 20-per­son com­mit­tee of judges, pros­e­cut­ing attor­neys, crim­i­nal defense lawyers, law­mak­ers and aca­d­e­m­ic experts con­vened by the state’s Supreme Court and the Ohio State Bar Association. She stat­ed the review ​“will make…

Retired Alabama Judge Loyd Little (pic­tured) recent­ly changed his mind about a death sen­tence he imposed on Derrick Mason in 1995 for a mur­der dur­ing a con­ve­nience store rob­bery. Mason is sched­uled for exe­cu­tion on September 22. Judge Little wrote a let­ter to be sub­mit­ted to Alabama Governor Robert Bentley request­ing that Mason’s sen­tence be com­mut­ed to life in prison with­out parole. The judge explained the change in his think­ing: ​“Years of expe­ri­ence and…

Georgia death row inmate Troy Davis will have a third clemen­cy hear­ing before the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles on September 19, two days before his sched­uled exe­cu­tion. The hear­ing will allow Davis to present wit­ness­es the Board did not hear from in pri­or hear­ings as well as ​“renewed claims of inno­cence” regard­ing his con­vic­tion for killing Savannah police offi­cer Mark Allen MacPhail in 1989. Doubts about Davis’ guilt were raised when some prosecution…

Linda Geffin (pic­tured) was one of the Texas pros­e­cu­tors who won a con­vic­tion and death sen­tence for Duane Buck in 1997. She is now the divi­sion chief of the Special Prosecutions Unit in the Office of the Harris County Attorney, and she is urg­ing Gov. Rick Perry and oth­er state offi­cials to stop Buck’s September 15 exe­cu­tion because improp­er race evi­dence was put before the jury con­sid­er­ing his sen­tence. In a let­ter to state offi­cials, Geffin…

Of the 16 death sen­tences that have been imposed since the U.S. mil­i­tary made sig­nif­i­cant changes to its death penal­ty sys­tem in 1984, 10 have been over­turned and all the defen­dants were resen­tenced to life. There have been no exe­cu­tions, and the 6 remain­ing cas­es are still under appeal. Military appel­late courts over­turned the sen­tences because of mis­takes made at many lev­els of the mil­i­tary’s judi­cial sys­tem, includ­ing inad­e­quate defense rep­re­sen­ta­tion, prosecutorial…

The lat­est edi­tion of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund​’s ​“Death Row USA” showed a slight increase of 9 inmates in the death row pop­u­la­tion in the United States between October 1, 2010 and January 1, 2011. However, death row is still sig­nif­i­cant­ly small­er now (3,251 inmates) than in 2000 (3,682 inmates). The size of death row also declined over­all in 2010. The size of death row is affect­ed by the num­ber of death sen­tences and the num­ber of exe­cu­tions. Nationally, the racial…

DPIC has updat­ed its Executions Per Death Death Sentence page to reflect data through 2010. This page lists states in order of the per­cent­age of death sen­tences result­ing in an exe­cu­tion since the death penal­ty was rein­stat­ed in 1976. If every death sen­tence result­ed in an exe­cu­tion, the state would be at 100%, or a rate of 1.00. Using this ratio of exe­cu­tions per death sen­tence, the first five states are Virginia (.725), Texas (.498),…

Texas is plan­ning to exe­cute Hank Skinner on November 9 despite the fact that vital evi­dence from the crime scene in his case has not been sub­ject­ed to DNA test­ing. Skinner has always main­tained his inno­cence. In 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court held that Skinner could file in fed­er­al court to com­pel the test­ing, but that lit­i­ga­tion has not been com­plet­ed. Moreover, a new Texas law became effec­tive on September 1 to ensure that pro­ce­dur­al bar­ri­ers do not prevent…