Publications & Testimony

On July 12, U.S. District Court Judge Raymond A. Jackson over­turned the mur­der con­vic­tion and death sen­tence of Justin Wolfe (pic­tured), who alleged­ly orches­trat­ed the slay­ing of his mar­i­jua­na sup­pli­er, Daniel Petrole Jr., in Virginia over a decade ago. Judge Jackson ruled that pros­e­cu­tors in Wolfe’s case with­held or ignored cru­cial evi­dence that could have helped Wolfe’s defense. The Court held that Prince William County Commonwealth’s…

A new report from the Equal Justice Initiative in Alabama expos­es the prac­tice of state judges impos­ing death sen­tences by over­rid­ing a jury’s rec­om­men­da­tion for life. EJI’s study found that judges in the state have over­rid­den jury rec­om­men­da­tions 107 times since 1976. In 92% of the over­rides, judges over­ruled life ver­dicts to impose a death sen­tence. More than 20% of the defen­dants on Alabama’s death row were sen­tenced through judge…

On July 8 U.S. District Court Judge Gregory Frost stayed the upcom­ing July 19 exe­cu­tion of Ohio inmate Kenneth Smith because of the state’s incon­sis­tent appli­ca­tion of its lethal injec­tion process. Judge Frost called the state’s prac­tice​“hap­haz­ard,” and said,​“Ohio pays lip ser­vice to stan­dards it then often ignores with­out valid rea­sons, some­times with no phys­i­cal ram­i­fi­ca­tions and some­times with what have been described as messy if…

Have you ever won­dered about how a death penal­ty tri­al is con­duct­ed or why the appeals take many years? The lat­est edi­tion of the Death Penalty Information Center’s series of pod­casts, DPIC on the Issues, may be help­ful in answer­ing those ques­tions. This pod­cast address­es ques­tions about the legal process in cap­i­tal cas­es, includ­ing jury selec­tion, sen­tenc­ing, and appeals. In addi­tion to cov­er­ing the basic steps in a death penal­ty case, the podcast…

Obama Administration and U.N. High Commissioner Seek Relief for Texas…

A phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­ny that man­u­fac­tures pen­to­bar­bi­tal (dis­trib­uted under the brand name Nembutal) has announced that it will sig­nif­i­cant­ly restrict its dis­tri­b­u­tion sys­tem to pre­vent the drug’s use in lethal injec­tions in the United States. Lundbeck Inc. announced in a state­ment that it​“adamant­ly oppos­es the dis­tress­ing mis­use of our prod­uct in cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment.” Lundbeck will review orders before pro­vid­ing clearance for…

On July 1, the Administration of President Barack Obama joined for­mer gov­ern­ment offi­cials and nation­al orga­ni­za­tions inter­ven­ing in the case of Texas death row inmate Humberto Leal Garcia. Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli, Jr. appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court to delay Leal’s exe­cu­tion sched­uled for July 7. The Solicitor General wrote that Leal’s exe­cu­tion​“would place the United States in irreparable…

Between January and the end of June 2011, there were 25 exe­cu­tions in 9 states. During the same time peri­od last year, there were 29 exe­cu­tions. Of the exe­cu­tions this year, 8 were car­ried out using the drug sodi­um thiopen­tal, while 17 involved a new drug, pen­to­bar­bi­tal. Earlier in 2011, Hospira Inc., the sole U.S. man­u­fac­tur­er of sodi­um thiopen­tal, announced that it would no longer man­u­fac­ture the drug, forc­ing states to search for for­eign sources or alternative…

The lat­est edi­tion of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund​’s​“Death Row USA” shows that the num­ber of peo­ple on death row in the United States is con­tin­u­ing to slow­ly decline, falling to 3,242 as of October 1, 2010. In 2000, there were 3,682 inmates on death row. Nationally, the racial com­po­si­tion of those on death row is 44% white, 42% black, and 12% Latino/​Latina. California con­tin­ues to have the largest death row pop­u­la­tion (714), followed by…

Professor Robert M. Bohm has pub­lished a new book on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, The Ultimate Sanction: Understanding the Death Penalty Through Its Many Voices and Many Sides. The book looks at the death penal­ty through inter­views with peo­ple affect­ed by the sys­tem in dif­fer­ent ways.​“We must,” Bohm writes,​“begin to under­stand the reach of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment beyond just the vic­tim and the per­pe­tra­tor.” To that end, he includes perspectives from…