Publications & Testimony
Items: 3911 — 3920
May 28, 2010
BOOKS: Last Words of the Executed
Last Words of the Executed by Robert K. Elder is a compilation of the final statements of death row inmates shortly before their execution. The book, with a foreword by Studs Terkel, also describes the crime and some of the social setting of each case presented. According to a review in The Economist, “The last words are remarkable for their remorse, humour, hatred, resignation, fear and bravado…. America’s diverse heritage is stamped even…
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May 27, 2010
Supreme Court Directs Lower Court to Reconsider Death Penalty Decision
On May 24, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, thereby giving the defendant another chance to show that his trial counsel was constitutionally ineffective. Lawrence Jefferson was sentenced to death in Georgia, despite the fact that he had suffered serious head injuries as a child. In an appeal in state court, he claimed that his attorney failed to investigate this early trauma. The…
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May 26, 2010
Texas County Fires Chief Medical Examiner Who Testified in Death Cases
El Paso County (Texas) recently fired its Chief Medical Examiner, Paul Shrode, who had testified in capital cases in Texas and Ohio. He was dismissed after evidence he provided in an Ohio death penalty case turned out to be unsupported by science. It was also discovered that he had made numerous misrepresentations on his resume. Earlier in May, the Ohio Parole Board voted to recommend clemency for death row inmate…
Read MoreMay 25, 2010
Prosecutor Views on the Decline in Death Sentences
Robert Stott, a veteran prosecutor in the Salt Lake County (Utah) District Attorney’s Office, recently commented on why death sentences have declined. “What I have found,” he said, “is that since the statute was changed to offer life without the possibility of parole, it’s more difficult to get the death penalty. Jurors realize that instead of having to make that terrible decision (voting for the death penalty), they can vote to put someone in prison and…
Read MoreMay 24, 2010
Supreme Court To Hear Case of Texas Death Row Inmate Denied DNA Testing
On May 24, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to consider whether a Texas death row inmate’s request for DNA testing can be considered as a civil rights claim rather than part of his death penalty appeal. The Court stayed Hank Skinner’s execution on March 24, just one hour before he was to be put to death. Skinner, who has always maintained his innocence of the 1993 murders of his girlfriend and her two sons, has requested that Texas perform DNA…
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May 21, 2010
Oklahoma Governor Grants Clemency
Oklahoma Governor Brad Henry granted clemency to Richard Tandy Smith, who was originally sentenced to death for a 1986 shooting during an alleged drug deal. Earlier this year, the Pardon and Parole Board approved a clemency recommendation for Smith and forwarded it to the governor for approval. Governor Henry said, “This was a very difficult decision and one that I did not take lightly. I am always reluctant to intervene in a capital case, and I am very…
Read MoreMay 20, 2010
Ohio Board Recommends Clemency Based on Questionable Expert Testimony
The Ohio Parole Board recently recommended clemency for death row inmate Richard Nields, who was sentenced to death for killing his live-in girlfriend during an argument in 1997. The board questioned the validity of medical evidence used at trial that helped support the death sentence. Testimony provided by a doctor-in-training indicated the victim had been beaten and strangled. However, the deputy coroner and supervisor of the trainee told the parole board…
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May 19, 2010
NEW VOICES: Ohio Supreme Court Justice Calls for Review of State’s Death Cases
Ohio Supreme Court Justice Paul E. Pfeifer recently said all current death row cases should be reviewed to discern which ones warrant execution and which ones should be commuted to life in prison without parole. “There are probably few people in Ohio that are proud of the fact we are executing people at the same pace as Texas,” Justice Pfeifer said. “When the next governor is sworn in, I think the state would be well served if a blue-ribbon panel was appointed to look at all…
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May 18, 2010
Lawyer For British National Had Many Clients Sent to Texas Death Row
Twenty clients of Texas defense attorney Jerry Guerinot have been sentenced to death – a number higher than the death row populations of 18 death penalty states around the country. Guerinot also represented Linda Carty, a British national who was facing the death penalty for arranging a murder. She asserts she was wrongly convicted and poorly represented by Guerinot. He failed to visit her for three months after being appointed her counsel, did not call key witnesses who would…
Read MoreMay 17, 2010
Federal Judge Asks U.S. Attorney General to Re-consider Death Penalty Over Costs
United States District Court Judge Nicholas Garaufis recently wrote a letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder asking that the government reconsider seeking the federal death penalty in the trial of a reputed mob boss. According to Judge Garaufis’s letter, preparations for the murder trial of Vinny Basciano in Brooklyn, N.Y., have already cost the government over $3 million in legal fees since 2005, and the trial proceedings have not yet…
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