Publications & Testimony

As Yakima County, Washington, faces the pos­si­bil­i­ty of its first death penal­ty tri­al since 1989, the dan­ger that the high cost of a cap­i­tal case could drain the coun­ty’s bud­get is a deep con­cern. Harold Delia, Yakima County court admin­is­tra­tive con­sul­tant ques­tioned the wis­dom of seek­ing the death penal­ty against a defen­dant recent­ly charged with mur­der, ​“You real­ly have to won­der whether this real­ly makes sense when you look at the cost-ben­e­fit analy­sis,” he…

On March 21, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal from death-row inmate Cory Maples (pic­tured), who is fac­ing exe­cu­tion because of a missed fil­ing dead­line in his state appeal. Copies of an Alabama court rul­ing in his case were sent to the New York law firm han­dling his appeals pro bono but were returned unopened to the court because the attor­neys rep­re­sent­ing Maples had left the firm. Maples him­self was not informed of the Alabama…

Daniel Cook is sched­uled for exe­cu­tion on April 5 in Arizona, despite the fact that the lead pros­e­cu­tor at his 1988 cap­i­tal tri­al has said that he would not have sought the death penal­ty if he had known more about Cook’s trau­mat­ic back­ground and men­tal ill­ness. At tri­al, Cook waived his right to coun­sel and rep­re­sent­ed him­self after learn­ing his appoint­ed lawyer was suf­fer­ing from bipo­lar dis­or­der and was drink­ing heav­i­ly. The judge denied Cook’s petition for…

The fed­er­al Drug Enforcement Administration has seized Georgia​’s for­eign sup­ply of sodi­um thiopen­tal, say­ing it will hold the drug while it inves­ti­gates whether the Department of Corrections import­ed the drug legal­ly. In February, attor­neys rep­re­sent­ing Georgia death row inmate Andrew DeYoung sent a let­ter to Attorney General Eric Holder alleg­ing that Georgia had vio­lat­ed the fed­er­al Controlled Substances Act ​“by fail­ing to reg­is­ter as an importer of the…

In a recent op-ed in the Chicago Tribune fol­low­ing Illinois​’s abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty, author and attor­ney Scott Turow (pic­tured) out­lined three major con­ser­v­a­tive rea­sons for oppos­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment: it is a failed gov­ern­ment pro­gram, it is a waste of mon­ey, and it does­n’t fit with the idea of lim­it­ed gov­ern­ment. Turow served on for­mer Governor George Ryan’s Commission on Capital Punishment, which found numer­ous prob­lems with the state’s…

On March 10, the exe­cu­tion of Johnnie Baston (pic­tured) in Ohio marked the first time any state car­ried out a death sen­tence with a sin­gle dose of the bar­bi­t­u­ate pen­to­bar­bi­tal. The use of pen­to­bar­bi­tal, more com­mon­ly employed in euth­a­niz­ing ani­mals, raised con­cerns among some death penal­ty experts. Fordham University law pro­fes­sor Deborah Denno warned, ​“Ohio is gam­bling blind­ly in its rush to exe­cute. There is no rea­son why Ohio can­not take the time to devise…