Publications & Testimony

On April 4, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the opin­ions of two low­er fed­er­al courts that had grant­ed a new sen­tenc­ing hear­ing to Scott Pinholster, who is on death row in California. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit had held that Pinholster’s attor­neys pro­vid­ed inad­e­quate rep­re­sen­ta­tion in not inves­ti­gat­ing evi­dence of severe brain dam­age. The attor­neys should have pur­sued med­ical evi­dence that Pinholster was an epileptic who…

On March 29, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed (5 – 4) a judg­ment of $14 mil­lion against the District Attorney’s Office of New Orleans for with­hold­ing evi­dence in the case of John Thompson. Thompson had been con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death but was lat­er exon­er­at­ed after the with­held evi­dence, cast­ing seri­ous doubt about his guilt, was revealed through the work of a pri­vate inves­ti­ga­tor. Thompson spent 18 years in prison includ­ing 14 years on death row, and faced…

As Texas pre­pares to exe­cute Cleve Foster on April 5, a new report released by the ACLU of Texas and Northwestern University’s Center for International Human Rights reveals that pro­ce­dures for euth­a­niz­ing ani­mals in the state are more care­ful­ly reg­u­lat­ed than the pro­to­col for exe­cut­ing death row inmates. In March, Texas announced that it will con­tin­ue to use a risky three-drug pro­to­col for exe­cu­tions, and will replace the crit­i­cal first drug, which is in…

The Texas Criminal Jurisprudence Committee of the House of Representatives heard tes­ti­mo­ny on March 29 regard­ing HB 1641, a bill that would put a hold on exe­cu­tions while the death penal­ty was being stud­ied. Charles Terrell, for­mer Chairman of the state’s Department of Criminal Justice, sup­port­ed the mora­to­ri­um in a state­ment to the com­mit­tee, express­ing con­cerns about: ​“fair­ness to those con­vict­ed on the lim­it­ed tes­ti­mo­ny of wit­ness­es, racial fairness in…

A new report issued by Amnesty International, Death Sentences and Executions 2010, shows a glob­al trend away from the use of the death penal­ty. According to the report, only four coun­tries in the G20 (rep­re­sent­ing the world’s major economies) car­ried out exe­cu­tions in 2010 (China, Japan, Saudi Arabia and the U.S.), 36 of the 53 African Union mem­ber states are abo­li­tion­ist in law or in prac­tice, and only 21 of the 192 UN mem­ber states carried out…

Gil Garcetti, the for­mer dis­trict attor­ney of Los Angeles who pur­sued numer­ous death sen­tences, recent­ly said California​’s death penal­ty is dys­func­tion­al and the resources spent on it should be divert­ed to more press­ing needs. In an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times, Garcetti said the death penal­ty caus­es ongo­ing tor­ment to fam­i­ly mem­bers and friends of mur­der vic­tims: ​“The liv­ing vic­tims of a par­tic­u­lar crime might think that a death…

Earlier in March, hear­ings were held in Connecticut before the House Judiciary Committee on a bill to replace the death penal­ty for future crimes with a sen­tence of life with­out parole. Many reli­gious lead­ers, schol­ars, for­mer death row inmates, and fam­i­lies of mur­der vic­tims fam­i­lies tes­ti­fied in favor of the bill. Catholic Bishop Peter Rosazza, retired aux­il­iary bish­op of the Archdiocese of Hartford, said, ​“The death penal­ty dimin­ish­es us all. We can­not teach respect for…