Publications & Testimony

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…

In a recent op-ed, Tracie Olson, the Yolo County Public Defender, explained why California’s death penalty could be replaced with more cost-efficient and less risky alternatives. Olson listed the death penalty’s high costs and risks of wrongful executions as reasons why alternatives to the death penalty would be more beneficial to the state’s citizens. Olson cited a 2011 study that found the death penalty has cost the state over $4 billion since 1978, and that capital cases cost 10 – 20 times…

New information on foreign nationals facing the death penalty in the U.S. is now available on DPIC’s Foreign Nationals page. This page provides background information on citizens from other countries who have been sentenced to death in various states and under the federal system. The list includes information on whether these defendants were informed of their consular rights under the Vienna Convention, which the U.S. has ratified and depends upon to protect its citizens when they travel…

On July 24, a Texas county judge declined to order a psychiatric evaluation to determine whether Marcus Druery is competent to be executed on August 1. Earlier this month, Druery’s attorneys requested a full investigation of his mental status, arguing he hears voices, believes he is being poisoned with feces-spiked food, and lacks the understanding of his legal situation required under the constitution for execution. Reports by mental health officials at the University of Texas show that Druery…

A new electronic book by former journalist Peter Rooney offers an in-depth look at the case of Joseph Burrows, who was exonerated from Illinois’s death row in 1996. In Die Free: A True Story of Murder, Betrayal and Miscarried Justice, Rooney explains how Burrows was sentenced to death for the murder of William Dulin based on snitch testimony. He was convicted primarily on the word of Gayle Potter, who recanted her testimony eight years later and admitted to committing the crime herself.

Bryan Stevenson, Executive Director of Equal Justice Initiative in Alabama, recently delivered the keynote address at the 30^th anniversary celebration of the Open Door Community in Atlanta. Mr. Stevenson discussed how defending those on death row often takes a personal toll on those engaged in this work, even to the point of feeling “broken.” But, he added, “I’ve learned some very basic things, being a broken person. I’ve learned that each person is more than the worst thing they’ve ever done.

One of the principal causes of wrongful convictions in death penalty cases and other felonies is mistaken eyewitness testimony. On July 19, the New Jersey Supreme Court issued instructions designed to help jurors better evaluate the reliability of eyewitness identifications. A judge is now required to tell jurors before deliberations begin that stress levels, distance, or poor lighting can affect an eyewitness’s ability to make an accurate identification. The new instructions also warn that…

A recent law review article by Professors Carol and Jordan Steiker examines two decades of attempts to regulate capital punishment and concludes that this process may have paved the way to a finding that the death penalty is unconstitutional: “[T]he modern American death penalty — with its unprecedented costs, alternatives, and legal regulatory framework — seems newly vulnerable to judicial invalidation. Reform of the death penalty and its abolition might well be on the same path.” The authors…

Conditions for the the 50 inmates on Mississippi’s death row are perhaps typical of death rows around the country, but are nevertheless debilitating and cruel. Most inmates spend an average of 12 – 15 years on death row while they proceed through the appeals process, though some have been there longer than 30 years. Death row inmates usually spend 23 hours a day in their cells. Dr. Stuart Grassian, a Harvard psychiatrist who has long studied death row inmates in solitary confinement, described…