Publications & Testimony

After years of reports about the high costs of California​’s death penal­ty, includ­ing a recent study that found the state has already spent $4 bil­lion on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment result­ing in 13 exe­cu­tions, a group of Californians has announced a cit­i­zens’ ini­tia­tive to put death penal­ty repeal on the 2012 bal­lot. The group, Taxpayers for Justice, includes over 100 law enforce­ment lead­ers, in addi­tion to crime-vic­tim advo­cates and exon­er­at­ed indi­vid­u­als. Among them…

Barry Scheck, co-direc­tor of the Innocence Project in New York, recent­ly dis­agreed with the opin­ion issued by the Texas Attorney General lim­it­ing the pow­er of the Forensic Science Commission to inves­ti­gate the case of a pos­si­bly inno­cent man who was exe­cut­ed in 2004. The AG’s deci­sion held that the Commission does not have juris­dic­tion to exam­ine evi­dence pri­or to 2005 and there­fore could not look at evi­dence from the case of Cameron…

Rhode Island Governor Lincoln D. Chafee (Indep.) recent­ly explained his denial of a request to trans­fer Jason Pleau to the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment for a poten­tial death penal­ty pros­e­cu­tion. Chafee stat­ed, ” As a mat­ter of pub­lic pol­i­cy, Rhode Islanders have long opposed the death penal­ty, even for the most heinous crimes. To vol­un­tar­i­ly let Mr. Pleau be exposed to the fed­er­al death penal­ty for a crime com­mit­ted in Rhode Island would be an abdication of…

A new report by Professor James S. Liebman (pic­tured) and Peter Clarke from Columbia University Law School ana­lyzes the declin­ing use of the death penal­ty and con­cludes that, although it is abstract­ly sup­port­ed by two-thirds of the pub­lic, the death penal­ty is actu­al­ly prac­ticed by only a dis­tinct minor­i­ty of juris­dic­tions in the United States. In their forth­com­ing arti­cle, ​“Minority Practice, Majority’s Burden: The Death Penalty…

In a recent op-ed in the L.A. Times, Professor Jennifer L. Mnookin (pic­tured) of the UCLA Law School pro­vid­ed an analy­sis of how pre­con­cep­tions and bias­es toward the uncon­ven­tion­al sus­pects known as the West Memphis Three may have led to their wrong­ful con­vic­tions and a death sen­tence in Arkansas in 1994. Because of the gris­ly nature of the mur­ders, inves­ti­ga­tors decid­ed ear­ly on that it was prob­a­bly relat­ed to satan­ic cult rituals.

Ohio Rep. Terry Blair (pic­tured) is one of two Republican co-spon­sors of House Bill 160, a bill that would replace the death penal­ty in the state with life with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole. Blair, whose opin­ion on the death penal­ty puts him in the minor­i­ty in the 59-mem­ber House Republican cau­cus, attrib­ut­es his views to his reli­gious beliefs. ​“I don’t think we have any busi­ness in tak­ing anoth­er person’s life, even for what…

Damien Echols was freed from death row and two code­fen­dants were freed from prison in Arkansas on August 19 after almost two decades of main­tain­ing their inno­cence for the mur­der of three chil­dren in 1993. Echols, along with Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley, were grant­ed an oppor­tu­ni­ty to enter a spe­cial plea in which they con­tin­ued to assert their inno­cence but acknowl­edged that the state could like­ly con­vict them again in a retri­al. DNA evi­dence that emerged after their…

The Innocence Project has launched a new mul­ti­me­dia resource illus­trat­ing the main caus­es of wrong­ful con­vic­tions and the reforms nec­es­sary to pre­vent such mis­takes. This inter­ac­tive tool, ​“Getting it Right,” fea­tures videos, case stud­ies and research on such top­ics as false con­fes­sions, eye­wit­ness iden­ti­fi­ca­tion, infor­mant tes­ti­mo­ny, and fail­ures by the defense and pros­e­cu­tion. Three death penal­ty cas­es are high­light­ed: Ron Williamson,…

A new study by Professor Franklin Zimring of the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law pro­vides an in-depth analy­sis of the fac­tors that influ­enced the dra­mat­ic twen­ty-year decline of street crime in New York City. According to the study, which was recent­ly dis­cussed in Scientific American, the rate of com­mon crimes such as homi­cide, rob­bery and bur­glary dropped by more than 80 per­cent in New York City. By 2009, the homi­cide rate was…

In Washington, King County has spent $656,564 to pros­e­cute three cap­i­tal defen­dants in two cas­es and over $4.3 mil­lion to defend the accused. The tri­als have yet to begin, but mon­ey has been need­ed for expert wit­ness­es, inves­ti­ga­tors, and foren­sic analy­sis. Prosecution costs do not include work done by police offi­cers and crime-lab ana­lysts. The coun­ty has strug­gled with con­straints on its crim­i­nal jus­tice bud­get and has elim­i­nat­ed the jobs of 36 pros­e­cu­tors since 2008. A…