Publications & Testimony

Recent leg­is­la­tion passed in Texas indi­cates bipar­ti­san sup­port for crim­i­nal jus­tice reform in the state. Legislators recent­ly passed an eye­wit­ness-iden­ti­fi­ca­tion bill intend­ed to cut down on the num­ber of vic­tims and wit­ness­es who make mis­takes in in-per­son and pho­to­graph­ic line-ups. This new law will require police agen­cies to adopt pro­ce­dures and use tech­niques that help lessen the num­ber of false con­fes­sions. Another bill passed recent­ly will make it eas­i­er for convicted…

On June 20, U.S. District Judge Jose E. Martinez declared Florida​’s death penal­ty uncon­sti­tu­tion­al because jurors are not required to make find­ings beyond a rea­son­able doubt on the aggra­vat­ing fac­tors that can increase a guilty defen­dan­t’s sen­tence from life to death. The rul­ing man­dates that defen­dants have a Sixth Amendment right to have all essen­tial ele­ments of proof in crim­i­nal cas­es found by a jury rather than by a judge. Legal experts say the ruling…

The Death Penalty Information Center has released a new report, ​“Struck by Lightning: The Continuing Arbitrariness of the Death Penalty Thirty-Five Years After Its Reinstatement in 1976.” The report shows that despite the changes to sen­tenc­ing schemes approved by the U.S. Supreme Court on July 2, 1976, race, geog­ra­phy, mon­ey and oth­er fac­tors con­tin­ue to make the imple­men­ta­tion of the death penal­ty arbi­trary and unfair. A major­i­ty of the nine…

A new study of California​’s death penal­ty found that tax­pay­ers have spent more than $4 bil­lion on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment since it was rein­stat­ed in 1978, or $308 mil­lion for each of the 13 exe­cu­tions car­ried out since then. The study, con­duct­ed by U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Arthur L. Alarcon and Loyola Law School Professor Paula M. Mitchell esti­mat­ed that cap­i­tal tri­als, enhanced secu­ri­ty on death row and legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion for capital…

On June 14, Senator Patrick Leahy (D.-Vt.) (pic­tured) intro­duced the Consular Notification Compliance Act. This bill would estab­lish enforce­ment mech­a­nisms for U.S. com­pli­ance with the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, a key treaty that pro­vides the right to con­sult with your con­sulate for cit­i­zens detained out­side their home coun­try. The U.S. has signed and rat­i­fied this treaty, but has not always abid­ed by its terms.

On June 13, 2011, law pro­fes­sor and not­ed researcher David Baldus died in Iowa City, IA. Professor Baldus had been a pro­fes­sor at the University of Iowa since 1969 and taught crim­i­nal law, anti-dis­crim­i­na­tion law, and cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment and fed­er­al crim­i­nal law. He was nation­al­ly rec­og­nized for his research on the death penal­ty. Professor Baldus con­duct­ed many stud­ies regard­ing the imple­men­ta­tion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the United States. One well-known study, con­duct­ed in…