Publications & Testimony

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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:…

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…

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…

On August 12, Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell said he would not com­mute the death sen­tence of Jerry Terrell Jackson, despite the emer­gence of evi­dence that Jackson was sub­ject­ed to extreme phys­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal abuse, evi­dence not heard by his tri­al jury. Jackson is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed on August 18 for the mur­der of 88-year-old Ruth Phillips. Federal District Court Judge Leonie Brinkema held a two-day hear­ing in 2008 where…

Kathryn Gaines, Rita Shoulders, Ruth Lowe and Victoria Cox all had some­one in their fam­i­ly mur­dered but all believe that a death sen­tence for the killers would only deep­en their per­son­al wounds. Shoulders lost her sis­ter to mur­der; Cox lost her broth­er; Lowe also lost her broth­er; and Gaines expe­ri­enced the death of her eldest grand­child a year ago. All four women are mem­bers of St. Martin de Porres Church in…