Publications & Testimony

On November 29, the Colosseum in Rome, Italy, was illuminated in honor of Connecticut’s repeal of the death penalty in April of this year. The event featured former death row inmate Shujaa Graham of California and George Kain of the Connecticut Network to Abolish the Death Penalty. Five states in the past five years have abolished the death penalty: Connecticut, Illinois, New Mexico, New Jersey, and New York. The program also commemorated the 10^th World Day of Cities Against the Death Penalty…

A recent editorial in The Oregonian, one of the state’s major newspapers, endorsed a bill in the upcoming legislative session that could result in the repeal of the death penalty. The bill, to be introduced by Rep. Mitch Greenlick, would begin the process of amending the state’s constitution through a referendum as early as November 2014. The editors wrote, “5 states — New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Illinois and New Mexico — have abandoned the death penalty in recent years. Advances in DNA…

Texas Representative Harold Dutton recently filed a bill that would prevent prosecutors in death penalty cases from using testimony from informants or from alleged accomplices of the defendant if the testimony was obtained in exchange for leniency, immunity or other special provisions. If passed, the bill would make Texas among the first states to ban such testimony. Alexandra Natapoff, a professor at Loyola of Los Angeles Law School, said, “The use of criminal informants is a massive source of…

When Maryland’s legislature again convenes in January, it is likely to consider a bill to repeal the death penalty. Governor Martin O’Malley (pictured) has sponsored such legislation in the past and may do so again. O’Malley has called the death penalty “inherently unjust” and said resources spent on capital punishment could be better used elsewhere. Maryland has not carried out an execution or had a new death sentence since 2005. Executions are currently on hold because the state’s lethal…

A recent editorial in the New York Times called for the end of the death penalty in New Hampshire. The editorial highlighted the case of Michael Addison, who is the only prisoner on the state’s death row. Addison was sentenced to death in 2008 for fatally shooting a police officer. The state Supreme Court recently held hearings for Addison, who is seeking a new trial or sentencing hearing because the original proceedings were unfair. According to the editorial, “The trial was held about 100…

On November 19, 110 countries voted for a resolution at the United Nations General Assembly calling for a worldwide moratorium on executions as a step towards the abolition of the death penalty. The vote marked record support for the resolution compared to previous years. Among the countries supporting the resolution were the European Union nations, Australia, Brazil, South Africa and Israel. The United States, Japan, China, Iran, India, North Korea, Syria and Zimbabwe were among 39 countries…

A new book, Race, Rape, and Injustice: Documenting and Challenging Death Penalty Cases in the Civil Rights Era, recounts the fascinating story of twenty-eight law students who traveled throughout the South in the 1960s to gather data about the use of capital punishment in rape cases. They found the death penalty was used almost exclusively against black defendants accused of raping white women. The book was largely written by Barrett Foerster, one of the students, and then completed after his…

According to Gary Syphus of the Legislative Fiscal Analyst’s Office in Utah, seeking the death penalty costs the state an additional $1.6 million per inmate from trial to execution compared to life-without-parole cases. Syphus offered this estimate to the Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Interim Committee of the Utah legislature on November 14. Republican state representative Steve Handy had asked for an examination of the state and local government costs associated with implementing the…

New Hampshire State Representative Renny Cushing (pictured), whose father and brother-in-law were murdered, is one of many members of the state’s legislature who supports repeal of the death penalty. “Everyone is moving away from the death penalty. It’s clear New Hampshire isn’t in love with the death penalty. We haven’t executed anyone since 1939,” Cushing said. New Hampshire’s only death row inmate currently has an appeal before the state Supreme Court. A death penalty abolition bill passed…

The Texas Attorney General’s Office has released partial results of DNA testing long requested by attorneys for death row inmate Hank Skinner. Although the results are incomplete and reveal the presence of another unknown person, the state is claiming the tests confirm Skinner’s involvement in the murder of his live-in girlfriend, Twila Busby, and her two adult sons in 1993. Skinner had been seeking additional DNA testing since 2000 even while execution dates had been scheduled, but his…