Publications & Testimony

On June 7, a clemen­cy peti­tion was filed with the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles request­ing a halt to the July‑7 exe­cu­tion of Humberto Leal, a Mexican cit­i­zen who was not advised of his con­sular rights upon arrest for a mur­der in San Antonio in 1994. The peti­tion was accom­pa­nied by let­ters from for­mer U.S. diplo­mats, retired mil­i­tary lead­ers, for­mer pros­e­cu­tors and judges, and asso­ca­tions of Americans living…

On June 1, a unan­i­mous jury in a fed­er­al death penal­ty pros­e­cu­tion in New York vot­ed to impose a life sen­tence on Vincent Basciano, an orga­nized-crime leader who had ear­li­er been con­vict­ed of mur­der, rack­e­teer­ing, and con­spir­a­cy. The pros­e­cu­tors’ lead wit­ness against Basciano was Joseph Massino, a for­mer crime boss who agreed to coop­er­ate with the gov­ern­ment in order to escape a death sen­tence for his own crimes. The federal…

A new nov­el by Dax-Devlon Ross, Make Me Believe: A Crime Novel Based on Real Events, fol­lows the dis­cov­er­ies and dan­ger­ous encoun­ters of a fic­tion­al author inves­ti­gat­ing the case of Toronto Patterson, the last juve­nile defen­dant exe­cut­ed in Texas before the U.S. Supreme Court struck down this prac­tice in 2005. Employing actu­al inter­views with Patterson, court doc­u­ments, news arti­cles and court­room tes­ti­mo­ny, Ross’s book blends fact and…

Chelsea Richardson (pic­tured), the first woman in Tarrant County, Texas, to be sen­tenced to death, may soon be serv­ing a life sen­tence instead. Six years after her con­vic­tion, Tarrant County District Attorney Joe Shannon agreed with Richardson’s appel­late attor­ney that the pros­e­cu­tor at her tri­al with­held evi­dence that could have affect­ed the jury’s sen­tence. This devel­op­ment would mark the sec­ond time in three years that the outcome of…

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…