Publications & Testimony
Items: 3891 — 3900
Jun 24, 2010
EDITORIALS: “Congress Must Rewrite the Law Governing Lawyers for Poor Death-Row Inmates”
The Washington Post recently published an editorial calling for Congress to rewrite the part of the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 that governs legal representation for indigent death-penalty defendants. The law allows a fast-track for federal appeals of state capital convictions provided states guarantee and pay for a system of legal representation that covers all capital defendants . Originally, the program had to be certified by the federal…
Read MoreJun 23, 2010
NEW VOICES: Former New Hampshire Supreme Court Justice Calls for Abolition
Joseph P. Nadeau, who served on New Hampshire’s Supreme Court for six years and as a judge for 37 years, recently testified before the state’s death penalty commission about his opposition to the practice. In an op-ed, Judge Nadeau summarized the moral and practical reasons why he believes capital punishment should be repealed. “Our thinking evolves, as people, technology, and societies progress,” he said. “And what is acceptable at one time in our history…
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Jun 22, 2010
NEW RESOURCES: “The State of the World’s Human Rights”
Amnesty International recently released its annual report on international abuses and progress in the field of human rights: “The State of the World’s Human Rights.” The report covers January to December 2009 and addresses human rights issues in every country around the world. The report also highlights countries’ involvement in international and regional human rights treaties. Among the nations in the Americas, the United States had the most active…
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Jun 21, 2010
Federal Court Finds Georgia’s Standards for Mental Retardation (Intellectual Disability) Unconstitutional
On June 18, a federal appeals court in Atlanta held that the burden Georgia places on death-penalty defendants to prove they are intellectually disabled, and thus exempt from the death penalty, is unconstitutional. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit said that requiring defendants to prove intellectual disability (mental retardation) “beyond a reasonable doubt” violates the Eighth Amendment’s ban against cruel and unusual punishments. It could…
Read MoreJun 18, 2010
BOOKS: Voices of the Death Penalty Debate
Voices of the Death Penalty Debate: A Citizen’s Guide to Capital Punishment is a new book that explores arguments for and against the death penalty through testimony given at the historic 2004 and 2005 hearings in New York on whether the state’s death penalty should be reinstated. The state’s law was struck down by the N.Y. Court of Appeals in 2004. Authored by Russell Murphy, a Suffolk University Law School professor, the book walks readers through testimony from…
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Jun 17, 2010
Supreme Court Agrees to Hear California Death Penalty Case
On June 14, the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari in Cullen v. Pinholster. In 1984, Scott Pinholster was convicted and sentenced to death for killing two men during a burglary in Los Angeles, California. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit overturned Pinholster’s death sentence because of ineffectiveness of counsel since his lawyer did not give the jury evidence of Pinholster’s mental illness during the penalty phase…
Read MoreJun 16, 2010
DNA Evidence Could Show If Texas Executed an Innocent Man
Texas Judge Paul C. Murphy recently ordered prosecutors to hand over key evidence from a 1989 murder case to the Innocence Project and the Texas Observer for DNA testing. In 2007, the Innocence Project and the Observer filed suit to obtain a one-inch strand of hair that allegedly implicated Claude Howard Jones (pictured) in the killing of a liquor store owner in San Jacinto County. Other than vague eyewitness accounts and…
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Jun 15, 2010
Supreme Court Allows Late Appeal Under Extraordinary Circumstances
On June 14, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Albert Holland, who lost his right to file a federal appeal of his death sentence when his lawyer missed the 1‑year deadline established under the Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA). The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit ruled that Holland’s attorney’s conduct in missing the deadline was not egregious enough to warrant setting aside the imposed…
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Jun 14, 2010
MULTIMEDIA: “Slow Death of the Death Penalty” on CBS News Sunday Morning
Jun 10, 2010
NEW VOICES: Utah Religious Leaders Express Concerns about the Death Penalty in Anticipation of Firing Squad Execution
The upcoming execution of Ronnie Lee Gardner, who has opted to be killed by a firing squad in Utah on June 18, has attracted the attention of many people of faith in the state. Hours before Gardner’s execution, prominent religious leaders will gather for a vigil to protest the execution. Religious leaders from groups often associated with being supportive of the death penalty have recently voiced concerns about the practice. The Mormon Church…
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