Publications & Testimony

On December 19, Dallas District Court Judge Teresa Hawthorne held that Texas’s death penalty was unconstitutional because it could lead to death sentences that were arbitrarily sought and obtained. In ruling in favor of a defense motion, Judge Hawthorne acknowledged that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and other courts have upheld the statute, but judges still have the obligation to review the law based on its current practice. The judge found parts of Texas’s statute regarding findings of…

The Chief Justice of California ‘s Supreme Court, Tani Cantil-Sakauye, recently called for a re-evaluation of the state’s death penalty system, saying the system is not working and “not effective.” In her first public comments on the issue since she became head of the the state’s highest court, Justice Cantil-Sakauye pointed to the present predicament for the state, saying the death penalty system needed “structural change, and we don’t have the money to create the kind of change that is…

On December 20, the Bureau of Justice Statistics released its annual set of statistical tables on the death penalty in the United States, covering information for 2010. Hightlights from the report include: ‑The average time spent on death row for those executed in 2010 was longer than for any previous year since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. The average time between sentencing and execution for those executed in 2010 was 14.8 years. ‑During 2010, 119 inmates were removed from…

Two former Supreme Court Justices in Kentucky and the President of the American Bar Association called for a suspension of executions in the state until its death penalty system is reformed. Writing in the Louisville Courier-Journal, the Justices stated, “The list of problematic cases is staggering, and review of the system is deeply troubling. Fairness, impartiality and effectiveness of counsel have been undermined by serious flaws that reveal systemic problems in administration of the death…

On December 20, the European Commission announced tough new restrictions on the export of drugs that could be used for executions in the United States. The EC added pentobarbital and sodium thiopental — two drugs on which almost all American executions currently depend — to its list of restricted products that are tightly controlled on the grounds that they may be used for cruel and inhuman treatment or punishment. “The decision today contributes to the wider EU efforts to abolish the death…

On December 16, Marin County Superior Court Judge Faye D’Opal rejected California’s new lethal injection protocols because corrections officials failed to consider a one-drug execution method now in practice in other states. Judge D’Opal also criticized the state for ignoring requirements of the law regarding the revision of official procedures. A federal court has also imposed a stay of executions while it is reviewing the state’s 3‑drug lethal injection procedures. In 2006, U.S. District…

On December 14, Ohio Supreme Court Justice Paul Pfeifer (pictured) testified before the state’s House Criminal Justice Committee, urging lawmakers to overturn the death penalty law he helped write as a state senator 30 years ago. Justice Pfeifer said, “The death penalty in Ohio has become what I call a death lottery,” citing factors such as the location of the crimes and the attitudes of individual county prosecutors as variables affecting whether the death penalty is pursued in a given case.

On December 15 an Illinois appellate court reversed Juan Rivera’s (pictured) conviction for a murder committed almost 20 years ago. The case is reminiscent of many in Illinois that led to the state’s abolition of the death penalty in 2011. Rivera was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for killing 11-year-old Holly Staker based on a confession after nearly 24 hours of near-constant interrogation. No physical evidence or witnesses conclusively linked him to the crime, and testing of DNA…

On December 15, the Death Penalty Information Center released its latest report, “The Death Penalty in 2011: Year End Report,” on statistics and trends in capital punishment in the past year. The report noted that new death sentences dropped to 78 in 2011, marking the first time since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976 that the country has produced less than 100 death sentences in a year. It represents a 75% decline since 1996, when there were 315 new death sentences. California, which…