Publications & Testimony

On August 8, Governor Tom Corbett of Pennsylvania signed an execution warrant for Terrance Williams for the 1984 murder of Amos Norwood. The execution was set for October 3. Although Gov. Corbett has signed 15 previous death warrants, all of those dates have been stayed because the defendant had not completed the ordinary appeals process. Williams’ death sentence and conviction, however, were affirmed by the federal Court of Appeals and his case was denied review by the U.S. Supreme Court.

A new study conducted by law professors Justin Marceau (left) and Sam Kamin (middle) of the University of Denver and Wanda Foglia (right) of Rowan University found that the death penalty in Colorado is applied so rarely as to render the system unconstitutional. The authors concluded that Colorado’s death penalty law is applicable to almost all first-degree murders, but is imposed so infrequently that it fails to provide the kind of careful narrowing of cases required by the Supreme Court in…

Carlos Moreno, who served as a Justice on California’s Supreme Court for nearly a decade and upheld more than 200 death sentences, now supports a ballot measure to replace the death penalty with a sentence of life without parole because the system is broken and unlikely to be fixed. Justice Moreno said that as long as capital defendants are “entitled to a fair trial and decent legal representation, there’s no way the system can accomplish its stated goals — punishment and deterrence for the…

On August 3, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) of the Organization of American States (OAS), which includes the U.S., called for a moratorium on executions in the region and released a report reviewing key areas of concern about the death penalty. The report made a series of recommendations for member States, including: — States should refrain from any measure that would expand the application of the death penalty or reintroduce it, — States should take any measures…

Use of the death penalty in California has declined in recent years. There have been no executions in six years, and the number of death sentences in 2011 dropped sharply from previous years. District Attorney Mark Peterson of Contra Costa County said his office tries to be smart on crime rather than automatically seeking death. “People here want us to be tough on crime, but they want us to be smart on crime,” he said. “Even though we might personally believe a defendant deserves the death…

On August 1, Delma Banks Jr., one of the longest serving inmates in Texas death-penalty history, received a life sentence and will be eligible for parole in 2024 under a plea agreement with prosecutors. Banks was convicted by an all-white jury of a 1980 murder, but there were no witnesses to the killing and no physical evidence linking Banks to it. The prosecution’s case relied largely on the testimony of two informants, both admitted drug users. In 1999, almost 20 years after the trial, Banks’…

Joseph Ard, who spent 11 years on South Carolina’s death row and a total of 19 years in confinement, was freed from prison on July 31. Ard was sentenced to death for the 1993 shooting of his pregnant girlfriend. After his conviction, new lawyers unearthed evidence that corroborated Ard’s claim that the shooting was accidental, resulting from a struggle with his girlfriend over a gun. Ard was granted a re-trial in 2007, and his lawyers presented scientific testimony that his girlfriend had…

Ronald Smith (pictured) is one of two Canadian citizens on death row in the United States. Smith is facing execution in Montana for the kidnapping and murder of two members of the Blackfeet Nation thirty years ago. Smith’s co-defendant, Rodney Munro, pleaded guilty to aggravated kidnapping and was returned to Canada and released from jail in 1998. Munro credits Smith for saving his life, saying that he was given a plea deal and released because Smith admitted to the murders. Carmen Blackburn…

Despite the U.S. Supreme Court’s ban on the death penalty for defendants with mental retardation, Texas is planning to execute Marvin Wilson on August 7. Wilson has an IQ of 61 and adaptive functioning levels even lower; the only board-certified expert to evaluate Mr. Wilson concluded he has mental retardation (now known as intellectual disability). Wilson struggled in school, and dropped out after the 10^th grade. According to experts who assessed his mental health, Wilson continues to be…