Publications & Testimony

A recent op-ed by Professor Gerald Uelmen of Santa Clara Law School in the Sacramento Bee high­light­ed major con­cerns about California​’s death penal­ty, includ­ing its high costs and the dif­fi­cul­ty in find­ing com­pe­tent rep­re­sen­ta­tion for death row inmates. Uelmen also not­ed that California has the broad­est death penal­ty law in the coun­try, which allows for more death-eli­gi­ble offens­es than oth­er death penal­ty states. According…

Fighting Crime in the U.S. and Internationally: Is the Death Penalty Necessary? A Unique Conversation Between U.S. and European Law EnforcementNational Press Club — Washington, D.C.Oct. 13, 2010 — 9:30 – 11:00…

On October 13, 2010, offi­cials from the U.S. and Europe held what may have been the first inter­na­tion­al forum of law enforce­ment offi­cers on the mer­its of the death penal­ty in reduc­ing vio­lent crime. The offi­cers dis­cussed whether cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment actu­al­ly helps to keep cit­i­zens safe, assists heal­ing for vic­tims, and uses crime-fight­­ing resources effi­cient­ly. The pan­elists addressed issues such as deter­rence, clo­sure to vic­tims’ fam­i­lies, and costs as…

On October 13, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear argu­ments in Skinner v. Switzer. Hank Skinner was con­vict­ed of mur­der­ing his girl­friend and her two sons in 1993 in their Texas home. He has always main­tained his inno­cence, and there is untest­ed DNA evi­dence that may prove some­one else com­mit­ted the crime. Some DNA test­ing was con­duct­ed before tri­al, plac­ing Skinner in the house where his girl­friend lived, a fact he…

“The Search for Lofie Louise” by Helen B. Anthony tells the true sto­ry of Louise Peete, a woman con­vict­ed of two mur­ders in California over two decades apart in the ear­ly 1900s. She denied her guilt in both instances, and her sto­ry and tri­al were wide­ly cov­ered by the media in California. Peete received a life sen­tence for the first mur­der and a death sen­tence for the sec­ond; she was exe­cut­ed on April 11, 1947. The author cap­tures the his­to­ry of the death penal­ty in an…

On October 19, PBS’s FRONTLINE will air Death by Fire, a doc­u­men­tary close­ly exam­in­ing the evi­dence used to con­vict Cameron Todd Willingham of the arson deaths of his three chil­dren. The doc­u­men­tary will focus on a crit­i­cal find­ing that was revealed just weeks before Willingham’s exe­cu­tion — that fire inves­ti­ga­tors appar­ent­ly relied on out­dat­ed arson sci­ence to deter­mine that Willingham had set the fire that…

Police chiefs from around the coun­try are express­ing fears that crime rates will increase as law enforce­ment resources are cut dur­ing the eco­nom­ic down­turn. In Sacramento, California, homi­cides are up 43% and assaults on police offi­cers are up 13%, while the depart­ment was forced to elim­i­nate its vice unit. In Phoenix, Arizona, a lack of funds is caus­ing police vacan­cies to go unfilled. Similar con­cerns were expressed by police chiefs in…

On October 6, the U.S. Supreme Court heard argu­ments in Connick v. Thompson. John Thompson, who was released from death row in 2003 after new­ly dis­cov­ered evi­dence under­mined his mur­der con­vic­tion, sued the New Orleans District Attorney’s office for fail­ing to train its attor­neys about their legal oblig­a­tion to turn over evi­dence that could help defen­dants prove their inno­cence. Thompson’s lawyers dis­cov­ered that prosecutors…

In a recent op-ed in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, two lead­ing con­ser­v­a­tives declared that the death penal­ty in the United States​“is no longer a nec­es­sary form of pun­ish­ment.” Richard A. Viguerie (pic­tured) and Brent Bozell urged their fel­low con­ser­v­a­tives to con­sid­er that the death penal­ty​“is an expen­sive gov­ern­ment pro­gram with the pow­er to kill peo­ple.”​“Conservatives,” they wrote,​“don’t trust the government is…

In an October 2010 inter­view on National Public Radio, then new­­ly-retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens said he par­tic­u­lar­ly regret­ted one vote dur­ing his 35 years on the high court — his 1976 vote to uphold the death penal­ty in Gregg v. Georgia. Stevens remarked,​“I thought at the time … that if the uni­verse of defen­dants eli­gi­ble for the death penal­ty is suf­fi­cient­ly nar­row so that you can be con­fi­dent that the…