Publications & Testimony

Attorneys for a mur­der defen­dant who may be inno­cent have called for reforms in the sys­tem of fed­er­al review, and par­tic­u­lar­ly to the​“accu­mu­lat­ed bar­ri­ers to habeas cor­pus review of claims of fac­tu­al inno­cence.” Barry Scheck of the Innocence Project, along with attor­neys for Dr. Jeffrey R. MacDonald in North Carolina, point­ed to the mount­ing evi­dence of MacDonald’s pos­si­ble inno­cence that was dis­missed by the fed­er­al courts until DNA evidence…

Lundbeck Inc., a Danish phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­ny that is the sole man­u­fac­tur­er of pen­to­bar­bi­tal for sale in the U.S., is fac­ing an eth­i­cal dilem­ma regard­ing the use of its drug in exe­cu­tions. Pentobarbital is increas­ing­ly being used in the U.S. in place of sodi­um thiopen­tal for lethal injec­tions. Pentobarbital was most recent­ly used in exe­cu­tions in Texas, South Carolina, and Mississippi. Andrew Schroll, a spokesman for Lundbeck,…

Jeanne Woodford (pic­tured), the for­mer direc­tor of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and Warden of San Quentin dur­ing 4 exe­cu­tions, recent­ly became the Executive Director of Death Penalty Focus, one of the largest non­prof­it advo­ca­cy orga­ni­za­tions in the nation ded­i­cat­ed to repeal­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. During her years in cor­rec­tions, Woodford came to the con­clu­sion that the…

Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, pro­fes­sor of psy­chi­a­try at Boston University School of Medicine, recent­ly dis­cussed the impact of vio­lence on chil­dren, com­par­ing its effects to prob­lems faced by sol­diers return­ing from war. He not­ed,​“For every sol­dier return­ing from Iraq and Afghanistan with symp­toms of depres­sion or PTSD [post-trau­­mat­ic stress dis­or­der], there are around 10 chil­dren in the United States who are trau­ma­tized by expo­sure to fam­i­ly vio­lence, sexual…

A black defen­dant fac­ing exe­cu­tion in Louisiana for the killing of a white fire­fight­er is chal­leng­ing the fair­ness of his tri­al because a Confederate flag was fly­ing out­side the Caddo Parish cour­t­house in Shreveport, Louisiana, dur­ing the pro­ceed­ings. Felton Dorsey’s legal team recent­ly argued before the Louisiana Supreme Court that the pres­ence of the flag had an impact on jury selec­tion and on Dorsey’s con­vic­tion. Carl Staples, a prospective black…

A num­ber of promi­nent con­ser­v­a­tives in Ohio are lend­ing their voic­es in sup­port of clemen­cy for Shawn Hawkins (pic­tured), who is fac­ing exe­cu­tion on June 14. Republicans Ken Blackwell, a for­mer Secretary of State and 2006 guber­na­to­r­i­al can­di­date, for­mer Attorney General Jim Petro, and state Sen. Bill Seitz have all writ­ten let­ters to Gov. John Kasich or to the Parole Board on behalf of Hawkins. Blackwell wrote,​“I have been a public…

The lat­est edi­tion of the Death Penalty Information Center’s series of pod­casts, DPIC on the Issues, is now avail­able. This pod­cast address­es Women and the Death Penalty, includ­ing a short his­to­ry of women exe­cut­ed in America, the pos­si­bil­i­ty of gen­der bias, and dif­fer­ences between women and men in sup­port of the death penal­ty. Generally, this series of pod­casts offers brief, infor­ma­tive dis­cus­sions of key death penal­ty issues. Other recent episodes…

George Gascon (pic­tured), San Francisco’s District Attorney and a for­mer chief of police, recent­ly dis­cussed his con­cerns about California​’s death penal­ty. He wrote,​“Despite say­ing that I would­n’t rule out the death penal­ty as dis­trict attor­ney, I want to make clear that I have seri­ous mis­giv­ings con­cern­ing the poten­tial for wrong­ful con­vic­tions and the dis­pro­por­tion­ate impact of the appli­ca­tion of the death penal­ty on racial…

A recent poll con­duct­ed by David Binder Research found strong sup­port for com­mut­ing all of the sen­tences of California​’s 712 death row inmates to life in prison with­out parole and requr­ing them to pay resti­tu­tion to the vic­tims’ fam­i­lies. Of the 800 vot­ers sur­veyed, 63% sup­port­ed the com­mu­ta­tions, which would save the state $1 bil­lion over five years. California cur­rent­ly faces a $13 bil­lion bud­get gap. Voters from across the political spectrum…

In the May 9 issue of The New Yorker, Jeffrey Toobin exam­ines the drop in death sen­tences in Texas and focus­es par­tic­u­lar­ly on the mit­i­ga­tion work being done by the Gulf Region Advocacy Center (GRACE) in Houston, head­ed by Danalynn Recer. Toobin cites a num­ber of pos­si­ble rea­sons for the drop in death sen­tences in Texas, includ­ing​“the increas­ing use of mit­i­ga­tion, a strat­e­gy that aims to tell the defendant’s life sto­ry.” The…