Publications & Testimony

New Hampshire Death Penalty Study Commission — Final Report Individual Statement of Commissioner…

There were a num­ber of fam­i­ly mem­bers of mur­der vic­tims who appeared before the Commission to share their per­son­al expe­ri­ences with homi­cide and the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem. They expressed their oppo­si­tion, as vic­tims, to the death penal­ty. As I lis­tened to their tes­ti­mo­ny, and as I do when I lis­ten to the expe­ri­ences of any fam­i­ly mem­ber of a mur­der vic­tim, whether they sup­port, oppose, or have no opin­ion on the death penal­ty, I felt a sense of shared…

Thanks to addi­tion­al research by Prof. Samuel Gross of the University of Michigan, DPIC has learned that one of the indi­vid­u­als on its list of exon­er­at­ed death row inmates had con­ced­ed his guilt to a less­er offense in con­nec­tion with the crime that orig­i­nal­ly sent him to death row. He was, how­ev­er, acquit­ted on the mur­der charge. James Bo Cochran was orig­i­nal­ly found guilty of a 1976 mur­der in Alabama in con­nec­tion with a robbery at…

Kenneth Jost of Congressional Quarterly has pre­pared a com­pre­hen­sive review of the death penal­ty in the U.S. for the recent edi­tion of the CQ Researcher. The overview looks at death penal­ty trends in the past 10 years, pub­lic opin­ion, and argu­ments for and against repeal­ing the death penal­ty. Jost quotes many experts, includ­ing DPIC’s Executive Director con­cern­ing the recent direc­tion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the U.S. “ ​‘The decline in…

On Nov.19, a Davidson County judge ruled that Tennessee​’s lethal injec­tion pro­ce­dure was uncon­sti­tu­tion­al, pos­si­bly delay­ing the exe­cu­tion of Stephen Michael West and oth­ers on death row. Chancellor Claudia Bonnyman, who issued the rul­ing, said that the state’s lethal injec­tion pro­ce­dure​“allows for death by suf­fo­ca­tion while con­scious,” because it did not spec­i­fy a suf­fi­cient dosage for sodi­um thiopen­tal, the first of three drugs used in lethal…

Gerald Kogan, a for­mer Florida Supreme Court Justice, and Mark White, for­mer gov­er­nor of Texas (pic­tured), recent­ly urged the U.S. Supreme Court to con­sid­er the death penal­ty appeal of Boyd v. Allen because of inad­e­quate defense rep­re­sen­ta­tion. According to the authors of an op-ed appear­ing in the National Law Journal, William Boyd’s defense lawyers in Alabama were bare­ly paid and did very lit­tle to try to…

In November, a pre­lim­i­nary res­o­lu­tion was pre­sent­ed to the United Nations General Assembly for a mora­to­ri­um on the use of the death penal­ty around the world. Panama, the European Union, Paraguay, Philippines, East Timor, Rwanda, Mozambique and Russia were among the res­o­lu­tion’s spon­sors. Other co-spon­­sors includ­ed nations in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The res­o­lu­tion received 107 votes in favor, 38 against and 36 absten­tions. In 2007, a similar…

In a recent edi­to­r­i­al, the Chicago Sun-Times sup­port­ed the abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty in Illinois dur­ing the cur­rent leg­isla­tive ses­sion. The paper not­ed its past sup­port for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment:​“In the past, we’ve sup­port­ed the death penal­ty as long as the legal sys­tem gives the accused a fair tri­al that results in a ver­dict of guilt beyond res­on­able doubt. Sadly, in light of expe­ri­ences in recent years, that goal…

The Illinois Capital Reform Study Committee, cre­at­ed by the state leg­is­la­ture in 2003 and head­ed by Thomas P. Sullivan, a for­mer U.S. Attorney, recent­ly issued its sixth and final report on the Illinois death penal­ty. The report found that tax­pay­ers are spend­ing tens of mil­lions of dol­lars on the pros­e­cu­tion of a large num­ber of death-penal­­ty cas­es, even though rel­a­tive­ly few result in actu­al death sen­tences. Since 2003, 18 peo­ple have been…

The longest serv­ing inmate on Texas​’s death row died of nat­ur­al caus­es in Dallas County Jail while await­ing a new sen­tenc­ing hear­ing. Ronald Curtis Chambers spent 35 years on death row await­ing exe­cu­tion. For much of the time, he was con­fined to his cell for 23 hours a day. Chambers was con­vict­ed of cap­i­tal mur­der and sen­tenced to death in 1975, but his sen­tence was over­turned repeat­ed­ly. He was again sen­tenced to death in 1985 and 1992. James…