Publications & Testimony

At a recent press con­fer­ence in Texas, pros­e­cu­tors accused for­mer dis­trict attor­ney Charles Sebesta of hid­ing and tam­per­ing with evi­dence, and of threat­en­ing wit­ness­es in order to con­vict Anthony Graves in 1994. Graves was recent­ly exon­er­at­ed from death row and freed after 18 years of con­fine­ment for a crime he…

Elie Wiesel, acclaimed author, human rights activist, Nobel Peace lau­re­ate and Holocaust sur­vivor, spoke about his oppo­si­tion to the death penal­ty dur­ing a lec­ture on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment at Wesleyan University in Connecticut in October. Wiesel, who lost both par­ents and a sis­ter in the Nazi death camps, focused his remarks on fam­i­ly mem­bers of mur­der vic­tims. He said that mur­der­ers should be pun­ished more harsh­ly than other prisoners…

On October 29, a New York Times edi­to­r­i­al raised many con­cerns regard­ing the recent exe­cu­tion of Native American Jeffrey Landrigan in Arizona. The Times said​“the sys­tem failed him at almost every lev­el, most dis­turbing­ly at the Supreme Court.” Landrigan’s exe­cu­tion gar­nered nation­al atten­tion because a nation­wide short­age of sodi­um thiopen­tal forced the state to seek the drug from foreign suppliers.

Anthony Graves (pic­tured) was released from a Texas prison on October 27 after Washington-Burleson County District Attorney Bill Parham filed a motion to dis­miss all charges that had result­ed in Graves being sent to death row 16 years ago. Graves was con­vict­ed in 1994 of assist­ing Robert Carter in mul­ti­ple mur­ders in 1992. There was no phys­i­cal evi­dence link­ing Graves to the crime, and his con­vic­tion relied pri­mar­i­ly on Carter’s testimony…

A new nov­el by acclaimed author John Grisham, enti­tled ​“The Confession,” tells the sto­ry of Donte Drumm, an inno­cent man who was con­vict­ed of mur­der and sen­tenced to death in Texas. The book begins as the exe­cu­tion of Drumm is only four days away and anoth­er man con­fess­es to the crime to a min­is­ter. Although a work of fic­tion, Grisham’s work offers a cri­tique of our crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem and of the death penalty in…

Michael Hall was sen­tenced to death in 2000 in Texas for kid­nap­ping and mur­der. At the time of his tri­al, his IQ was mea­sured at 67. Generally, a per­son with intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty is defined as some­one with an IQ of 70 or low­er, along with lim­i­ta­tions in adap­tive skills. In 2002, the Supreme Court ruled in Atkins v. Virginia that exe­cut­ing some­one who has an intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty (men­tal…

The Atlantic Center for Capital Representation (ACCR) is a new­ly formed non-prof­it death penal­ty resource cen­ter locat­ed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. ACCR pro­vides pre-tri­al con­sul­ta­tion to cap­i­tal defense prac­ti­tion­ers and defense teams in Pennsylvania and Delaware. They are involved in con­duct­ing statewide cap­i­tal defense train­ings, as well as pub­lic edu­ca­tion and advo­ca­cy. The ACCR is led by Marc Bookman and…

On October 20, attor­neys for Jeffrey Landrigan filed a clemen­cy peti­tion with the Arizona Board of Executive Clemency call­ing on the Board to rec­om­mend the com­mu­ta­tion of Landrigan’s death sen­tence large­ly because of errors by his tri­al attor­neys. Landrigan’s orig­i­nal attor­neys failed to present mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence at the sen­tenc­ing hear­ing, which could have includ­ed evi­dence of brain dam­age and severe abuse. Judge Cheryl…

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals recent­ly held that the method­ol­o­gy used by Dr. Richard Coons to pre­dict the​“future dan­ger­ous­ness” of cap­i­tal defen­dants was unre­li­able. Whether a con­vict­ed defen­dant would be a future dan­ger to soci­ety is a cru­cial ques­tion for juries in Texas in choos­ing between a life or death sen­tence. Dr. Coons has tes­ti­fied in over 150 death penal­ty tri­als across the state. He admit­ted in a recent hearing…

A recent arti­cle in Second Class Justice, a weblog ded­i­cat­ed to address­ing unfair­ness and dis­crim­i­na­tion in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem, high­light­ed that the death penal­ty con­tin­ues to be arbi­trar­i­ly applied in the United States. Citing fig­ures from the American Judicature Society, author Robert Smith revealed that only 10% of U.S. coun­ties account­ed for all of the death sen­tences imposed between 2004 and 2009, and only 5% of the counties…