Publications & Testimony

A report released on April 18 by the prestigious National Research Council of the National Academies based on a review of more than three decades of research concluded that studies claiming a deterrent effect on murder rates from the death penalty are fundamentally flawed. The report concluded: “The committee concludes that research to date on the effect of capital punishment on homicide is not informative about whether capital punishment decreases, increases, or has no effect on homicide…

April 22 will mark the 25^th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in McCleskey v. Kemp in which the Court rejected (5 – 4) a claim of racial bias based on a sophisticated statistical study of the death penalty in Georgia. Warren McCleskey, an African-American death row inmate convicted of killing a white police officer, presented the Court with analysis showing that defendants charged with killing white victims had odds of receiving a death sentence that were 4.3 times higher than…

A recent study of the death penalty in Nevada compared the costs of defending capital and non-capital murder cases. The study, conducted by Dr. Terance Miethe of the Department of Criminal Justice at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, looked at the time spent by defense attorneys at various stages of a case. The study’s findings included: — Clark County public defense attorneys spent an average of 2,298 hours on a capital murder case compared to an average of 1,087 hours on a non-capital…

A recent editorial in the New York Times called Connecticut’s decision to repeal the death penalty part of “a growing movement against capital punishment.” The editorial attributed the trend away from the death penalty to new research that shows “gross injustice in its application and enormous costs in continuing to impose it.” The problem of arbitrariness recently came to light in Connecticut, where “a powerful, comprehensive study provided evidence that state death sentences are haphazardly…

On April 11, the Connecticut House of Representatives passed (86 – 62) a bill to abolish the death penalty for future crimes. The same bill passed the Connecticut Senate on April 5. Governor Dannel Malloy has pledged to sign the bill, which will make Connecticut the 17^th state to abolish the death penalty, and the 5^th to do so in the last 5 years. In a statement released after the House vote, Gov. Malloy said, “When I sign this bill, Connecticut will join 16 other states and almost every other…

Following the recent handing down of a death sentence in Philadelphia, the Executive Director of the Atlantic Center for Capital Representation blamed the outcome on an inadequate indigent-defense system. Marc Bookman (pictured), writing in the Philadelphia Inquirer, reviewed the case and found, “There isn’t a single motion filed by the attorneys in defense of their client. Nor is there a request for a jury questionnaire, which is standard in most jurisdictions that regularly handle capital…

Oklahoma inmate Garry Allen (pictured) is scheduled for execution on April 12, despite a Pardon and Parole Board’s 4 – 1 recommendation that his sentence be reduced to life without parole. In an unusual move, Mr. Allen originally pleaded guilty to murdering his girlfriend without receiving any benefit in sentencing, and has testified that he did so to spare his family and the victim’s family the trauma of a trial. Allen was shot in the head at the time of his arrest. His lawyers have argued that…

Donald Heller (pictured), who wrote California’s death penalty law, and Ron Briggs, who led the campaign to reinstate the law in 1978, are now advocating for replacing the death penalty with a sentence of life without parole. Both now say that the law did not have the result they intended. “At the time, we were of the impression that it would do swift justice, that it would get the criminals and murderers through the system quickly and apply them the death penalty,” Briggs said. But the costs…

A new study published on the Social Science Resource Network by a group of professors at Cornell University found a high incidence of racial disparities in the operation of Delaware’s death penalty. The study, published in conjunction with a symposium honoring the late David Baldus (pictured), examined the state’s death penalty since 1972 and found: — Of 49 defendants sentenced to death since 1972, 53% were black, 39% were white, and 8% were Hispanic or Native American. In contrast, 69% of…

On April 5, the state senate in Connecticut approved (20 – 16) a bill to repeal the death penalty and replace it with a sentence of life without a parole. The bill is prospective and would not affect the 11 inmates currently on death row. The senate passed an amendment to the original repeal bill requiring future defendants convicted of murder with special circumstances to be subject to the same confinement conditions as current death row inmates. Sen. Gayle Slossberg, D‑Miford, a former…