Publications & Testimony

Minnesota Senator Tom Neuville, the lead­ing Republican com­mit­tee mem­ber on the state’s Senate Judiciary Committee, says he will oppose Governor Tim Pawlenty’s efforts to rein­state death penal­ty. Neuville’s basic oppo­si­tion is moral: ​“If we solve vio­lence by becom­ing vio­lent our­selves, we become dimin­ished.” Neuville, a for­mer death penal­ty sup­port­er whose reex­am­i­na­tion of his pro-life beliefs led him to change his mind on the issue, feels that many of his col­leagues share his…

A Virginia judge ruled that pros­e­cu­tors may not seek the death penal­ty against a Vietnamese man accused of mur­der­ing two peo­ple because police vio­lat­ed the man’s rights under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations by not inform­ing him that he could con­tact his coun­try’s con­sulate. “[T]he duty to give notice is absolute.… [T]he idea that the state can com­plete­ly ignore its treaty oblig­a­tions with­out con­se­quence essen­tial­ly oblit­er­ates the pur­pose for which the rights under the Vienna…

The Texas State Board of Examiners of Psychologists recent­ly rep­ri­mand­ed and fined Dr. George Denkowski, a psy­chol­o­gist who exam­ined many death row inmates for intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ties, includ­ing two who were sub­se­quent­ly exe­cut­ed. Despite using unsci­en­tif­ic meth­ods that have been sharply crit­i­cized by oth­er psy­chol­o­gists, Dr. Denkowski found 16 inmates qual­i­fied for exe­cu­tion. As part of a set­tle­ment, Dr. Denkowski agreed not to con­duct intellectual…

An expen­sive fed­er­al death penal­ty tri­al under way in New York illus­trates many of the con­cerns about such pros­e­cu­tions. New York is a state that no longer has its own death penal­ty. Nevertheless, the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment is seek­ing a death sen­tence for Vincent Basciano, who is already serv­ing life with­out parole. Because the death penal­ty is being sought, the case has already costs mil­lions of dol­lars and the final bill will like­ly be $10 mil­lion or more.

A new book, ​“Queer (In)Justice” by Joey Mogul, Andrea Ritchie, and Kay Whitlock, explores the expe­ri­ences of les­bian, gay, bisex­u­al, and trans­gen­der peo­ple in America’s crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem, and par­tic­u­lar­ly their inter­ac­tion with the death penal­ty sys­tem. The authors assert that pros­e­cu­tors have used defen­dants’ sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion or gen­der-non­con­form­ing appear­ance to obtain cap­i­tal con­vic­tions: ​“In cap­i­tal cas­es a pros­e­cu­tor must suc­cess­ful­ly under­take what should be a…