Publications & Testimony

Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna recent­ly said he is not sure the death penal­ty is the way to han­dle the worst crimes in his state. ​“I could live with­out it frankly. I think it’s very expen­sive, and the delays are inor­di­nate, delay­ing clo­sure for the vic­tims’ fam­i­lies,” he said. McKenna said he uses the death penal­ty spar­ing­ly in Washington, reserv­ing it for the most seri­ous aggra­vat­ed-mur­der con­vic­tions. He said he would con­tin­ue to uphold the law, if the peo­ple still…

Teresa Lewis is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed on September 23 in Virginia, the first woman to be exe­cut­ed in that state in a cen­tu­ry. But Lynn Litchfield, the for­mer prison chap­lain who came to know Lewis over six years, has said she ​“does­n’t deserve to die.” Litchfield recent­ly wrote in Newsweek Magazine that Lewis ​“has an IQ of 72” and that ​“one of the the two men who car­ried out the killings admitt[ed] that it was he, not she, who mas­ter­mind­ed the…

On September 2, Ohio Governor Ted Strickland (pic­tured) grant­ed clemen­cy to Kevin Keith, com­mut­ing his death sen­tence to life with­out parole. Keith, who was con­vict­ed of killing three peo­ple, has always main­tained his inno­cence, and some evi­dence point­ed to anoth­er sus­pect. Gov. Strickland’s com­mu­ta­tion state­ment addressed his con­cerns regard­ing Keith’s case: ​“Mr. Keith’s con­vic­tion relied upon the link­ing of cer­tain eye­wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny with…

Pennsylvania Governor Edward Rendell has signed 113 exe­cu­tion war­rants dur­ing his two terms in office, yet it appears like­ly that he will leave office in a few months with­out see­ing any of them car­ried out. Since the state rein­stat­ed the death penal­ty in 1978, only three men have been exe­cut­ed, all of whom had waived their…

Kentucky Governor Steven Beshear recent­ly held off sign­ing death war­rants for two inmates because of a short­age of the drug sodi­um thiopen­tal, a key com­po­nent of the state’s lethal injec­tion pro­to­col. Kentucky’s stock of the lethal injec­tion drug expires October 1, and the Department of Corrections does not expect a new sup­ply until ear­ly 2011 because the only sup­pli­er of this drug in the coun­try, Hospira, is unable to obtain the active ingre­di­ent for the drug. Even when a…

Paul Clement (pic­tured), for­mer Solicitor General under President George W. Bush, along with a group of for­mer Justice Department pros­e­cu­tors and civ­il rights offi­cials, is ask­ing the U.S. Supreme Court for time to argue on behalf of a for­mer death row inmate in a case address­ing pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct. Lawyers for John Thompson claimed that the New Orleans dis­trict attor­ney’s office sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly with­held impor­tant evi­dence that would…