Publications & Testimony

On May 28, the Nevada Senate passed a bill autho­riz­ing an audit of the cost of the state’s death penal­ty. By a vote of 11 – 10, the Senate called for the leg­isla­tive audi­tor to com­pare the costs of pros­e­cu­tion and appeals in cap­i­tal cas­es to non-death penal­ty cas­es, exam­in­ing the cost of defense lawyers, juries, psy­chi­atric eval­u­a­tions, appel­late and post-con­vic­­tion pro­ceed­ings. The audi­tor would also exam­ine the cost of an exe­cu­tion, including…

A new biog­ra­phy of Clarence Darrow by John A. Farrell chron­i­cles the life of this famous American lawyer, known for his elo­quence in defend­ing unpop­u­lar clients and in secur­ing reprieves for those con­demned to death. He won life sen­tences for Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, whose crimes of kid­nap­ping and mur­der had gar­nered nation­al atten­tion. He often spoke pub­licly about his oppo­si­tion to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Darrow had many famous clients during…

In a clear nation­al trend, sev­en states (Alabama, Arizona, Mississippi, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, and South Carolina) have used pen­to­bar­bi­tal instead of sodi­um thiopen­tal in their exe­cu­tions in 2011. The most recent such exe­cu­tion was that of Donald Beaty in Arizona on May 25, fol­low­ing a tem­po­rary stay as the state made a sud­den switch to the new drug. Ohio is the only one of the seven states…

The Arizona Supreme Court stayed the exe­cu­tion of Donald Beaty that was sched­uled for May 25 after the state Department of Corrections tried to make last-minute changes to the exe­cu­tion pro­to­col. On May 24 the U.S. Department of Justice told Arizona not to use its sup­ply of sodi­um thiopen­tal because it had been obtained ille­gal­ly from a com­pa­ny in Great Britain. Arizona’s Attorney General filed notice with the Arizona Supreme Court stating…

Victoria Coward, whose son Tyler (pic­tured) was killed when he was 18, recent­ly peti­tioned Connecticut leg­is­la­tors to repeal the death penal­ty. Speaking of her son’s killer, Coward said,​“In the begin­ning I was so mad, I did want him dead. Then I had to think about it. You don’t want any­one killing your son. Just get him off the street so he doesn’t do that to any­body else. Killing Jose [her son’s mur­der­er] isn’t going to help…

A recent edi­to­r­i­al in the Philadelphia Inquirer con­cludes the pub­lic is ready to scrap the death penal­ty in Pennsylvania, even if the leg­is­la­ture is not. According to the edi­to­r­i­al, juries opt­ed for the death penal­ty in just 3% of first-degree mur­der cas­es over the past four years:​“Pennsylvania juries clear­ly are more com­fort­able with the alter­na­tive sen­tence of life with­out parole, which assures that first-degree murder…

Although the U.S. Supreme Court has deter­mined that the intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abiled (men­tal­ly retard­ed) are barred from the death penal­ty, the deci­sion of whether a defen­dant meets this dis­abil­i­ty stan­dard is not made by men­tal health experts but by jurors and judges. A recent study pub­lished in Law & Psychology Review found that jurors expect a much low­er lev­el of intel­lec­tu­al func­tion­ing than men­tal health experts to arrive at a finding…

Current and for­mer law enforce­ment offi­cials in California recent­ly dis­cussed their views on the future of the death penal­ty dur­ing a con­fer­ence in San Francisco. Jeanne Woodford (pic­tured left), for­mer Warden of San Quentin prison, said that the time has come to end exe­cu­tions in the United States:​“I have had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to view this issue from every point of view. I absolute­ly am pas­sion­ate about the posi­tion that it’s time to end…

Dale Recinella for­mer­ly worked as an attor­ney on large finan­cial deals, includ­ing the build­ing of a National Football League sta­di­um. He also sup­port­ed the death penal­ty. But he now focus­es on the needs of death row inmates and oth­er pris­on­ers in Florida. His new book, enti­tled​“Now I Walk on Death Row,” tells of his career tran­si­tion and the rever­sal in his views on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Although he…

A recent Philadelphia Inquirer study revealed that the death penal­ty is almost nev­er hand­ed down for homi­cides in Pennsylvania, and that exe­cu­tions are even more unlike­ly. From a com­pi­la­tion of 1,975 homi­cide cas­es dat­ing from 2007 to Feb. 3, 2011 pro­vid­ed by the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts, only 8 result­ed in a death sen­tence. Almost all cas­es end­ed with a sen­tence of life with­out parole, with guilty pleas, acquittals or…