Publications & Testimony

On October 13, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear argu­ments in Skinner v. Switzer. Hank Skinner was con­vict­ed of mur­der­ing his girl­friend and her two sons in 1993 in their Texas home. He has always main­tained his inno­cence, and there is untest­ed DNA evi­dence that may prove some­one else com­mit­ted the crime. Some DNA test­ing was con­duct­ed before tri­al, plac­ing Skinner in the house where his girl­friend lived, a fact he does not dispute.

“The Search for Lofie Louise” by Helen B. Anthony tells the true sto­ry of Louise Peete, a woman con­vict­ed of two mur­ders in California over two decades apart in the ear­ly 1900s. She denied her guilt in both instances, and her sto­ry and tri­al were wide­ly cov­ered by the media in California. Peete received a life sen­tence for the first mur­der and a death sen­tence for the sec­ond; she was exe­cut­ed on April 11, 1947. The author cap­tures the his­to­ry of the death penal­ty in an ear­li­er era. Today, the…

Police chiefs from around the coun­try are express­ing fears that crime rates will increase as law enforce­ment resources are cut dur­ing the eco­nom­ic down­turn. In Sacramento, California, homi­cides are up 43% and assaults on police offi­cers are up 13%, while the depart­ment was forced to elim­i­nate its vice unit. In Phoenix, Arizona, a lack of funds is caus­ing police vacan­cies to go unfilled. Similar con­cerns were expressed by police chiefs in…

On October 6, the U.S. Supreme Court heard argu­ments in Connick v. Thompson. John Thompson, who was released from death row in 2003 after new­ly dis­cov­ered evi­dence under­mined his mur­der con­vic­tion, sued the New Orleans District Attorney’s office for fail­ing to train its attor­neys about their legal oblig­a­tion to turn over evi­dence that could help defen­dants prove their inno­cence. Thompson’s lawyers dis­cov­ered that pros­e­cu­tors delib­er­ate­ly cov­ered up…

In a recent op-ed in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, two lead­ing con­ser­v­a­tives declared that the death penal­ty in the United States ​“is no longer a nec­es­sary form of pun­ish­ment.” Richard A. Viguerie (pic­tured) and Brent Bozell urged their fel­low con­ser­v­a­tives to con­sid­er that the death penal­ty ​“is an expen­sive gov­ern­ment pro­gram with the pow­er to kill peo­ple.” ​“Conservatives,” they wrote, ​“don’t trust the gov­ern­ment is always capa­ble, com­pe­tent, or…

In an October 2010 inter­view on National Public Radio, then new­ly-retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens said he par­tic­u­lar­ly regret­ted one vote dur­ing his 35 years on the high court — his 1976 vote to uphold the death penal­ty in Gregg v. Georgia. Stevens remarked, ​“I thought at the time … that if the uni­verse of defen­dants eli­gi­ble for the death penal­ty is suf­fi­cient­ly nar­row so that you can be con­fi­dent that the defen­dant real­ly merits…

Judge Charles Baird of Austin, Texas, will con­duct a court of inquiry on October 6 – 7 (Update: Hearing post­poned until Oct. 14) to deter­mine whether Cameron Willingham (pic­tured) was wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed and exe­cut­ed for the death of his three daugh­ters in a fire orig­i­nal­ly deemed to be an arson. Willingham main­tained his inno­cence up until his exe­cu­tion in 2004. Former Texas Governor Mark White, one of the…