Publications & Testimony

Earlier Proposal for Federal Trials U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder had announced that five men being held in Guantanamo prison in connection with the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center will face trial in federal court in New York City: Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, Walid bin Attash, Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi and Ramzi bin al-Shibh. These defendants could face the federal death penalty. (C. Savage, “U.S. To Try Avowed 9/11 Mastermind Before Civilian Court in…

Controversies surrounding the lethal drugs used in U.S. executions continue to arise in many states. Documents obtained by the Associated Press reveal the secretive process in which the Delaware Department of Corrections obtained the drugs necessary for the its lethal injection process. Delaware officials solicited the help of the state’s Economic Development Director, Alan Levin, in obtaining lethal injection drugs after its previous supply expired in 2005. Levin, the former head of the Happy…

Commentary from nationally syndicated columnist E.J. Dionne (pictured) and the New York Times reflected on the changing state of the death penalty in the U.S. in light of recent developments. Dionne cited the repeal of the death penalty in Connecticut as an example of a “remarkable pivot in the politics of the death penalty, the premier issue on which an overwhelming consensus favoring what’s taken to be the conservative side has begun to crumble.” He observed that “significant groups of…

In a recent op-ed in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter called for the end of the death penalty. President Carter cited the risk of wrongful executions, the lack of evidence of deterrence, and the costs of prosecution as reasons to abolish capital punishment. He wrote, “[T]here has never been any evidence that the death penalty reduces capital crimes or that crimes increased when executions stopped. Tragic mistakes are prevalent. DNA testing and other factors…

A new book published in electronic format, The Death Penalty Failed Experiment: From Gary Graham to Troy Davis in Context by Diann Rust-Tierney, examines the problem of arbitrariness in the death penalty since its reinstatement in 1976. Through an analysis of the cases of Gary Graham and Troy Davis, the author argues that race, wealth and geography play a more significant role in determining who faces capital punishment than the facts of the crime itself. Both defendants had significant claims…

In an op-ed written for the 25^th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in McCleskey v. Kemp, nationally acclaimed death penalty expert James Acker (pictured) called for a reassessment of how race is affecting death penalty decisions. Prof. Acker questioned the Court’s refusal to find bias in the wake of the strong statistical evidence presented in that case. He wrote, “The time has surely come for a sober reassessment of this ruling” and “we must question if justice truly has been…

On April 25, 2012, Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy (pictured) signed into law a bill that replaces the death penalty with life without parole. At that time, Connecticut became the fifth state in five years, and the 17^th overall, to do away with capital punishment. Governor Malloy, who once supported the death penalty, offered the following statement: “My position on the appropriateness of the death penalty in our criminal justice system evolved over a long period of time. As a young man, I…

On April 20, the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles reduced the death sentence of Daniel Greene (pictured) to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The Board had stayed Greene’s execution, which was set for April 19, in order to further consider his clemency petition. Greene’s petition included letters from several members of the Taylor County community, where the murder occurred, urging the Board to spare Greene’s life. Among the letters was one from a former correctional…

On April 23, the SAFE California Act, an initiative to replace California’s death penalty with a sentence of life without parole, qualified for the November 2012 ballot by presenting an ample number of qualified signatures. The initiative garnered almost 800,000 signatures for the measure that would repeal the death penalty and make capital crimes punishable by life in prison without parole. The initiative would also require inmates to work in prison to help pay restitution to the families of…