Publications & Testimony

On December 7, the American Bar Association released a report assessing Kentucky’s system of capital punishment and calling for a halt to executions in the state. The report was prepared by the Kentucky Assessment Team on the Death Penalty, which included law professors, former state supreme court justices, and practicing attorneys. The two-year study recommended that the state temporarily suspend executions until serious issues of fairness and accuracy are addressed. The review reported that…

According to a recent study by the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Virginia executes the highest proportion of people sentenced to death of any state in the country. Of the 149 death sentences handed down through 2010, 108 have resulted in an execution, a rate of about 72 percent. Virginia is second to Texas in the total number of executions carried out since 1976, but Texas has executed less than half of those sentenced to death. In many states, less than 1 in 10 death sentences have resulted in an…

An editorial in the New York Times criticized a recent ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, upholding the heavy burden Georgia places on offenders with intellectual disabilities. In order to be exempt from the death penalty, defendants must prove “beyond a reasonable doubt” that they are mentally retarded. The U.S. Supreme Court held in 2002 that such defendants cannot receive the death penalty, but the Court left the procedures for determining this status to the…

Gussie Vann of Tennessee has been added to the list of those exonerated from death row following the dismissal of all charges against him in September 2011. Vann becomes the 139^th former death row inmate exonerated since 1973. Vann was originally convicted and sentenced to death in 1994 for a sexual assault and murder of his own daughter, Necia Vann, in 1992. However, in 2008 following state post-conviction review, Circuit Court Senior Judge Donald P. Harris held that Vann was entitled to a new…

On November 28 the North Carolina Senate voted to repeal the state’s Racial Justice Act, which allowed death row inmates to use statistical evidence of racial bias to challenge their sentences. The House had earlier approved the repeal measure. The Act was passed in 2009, and the first cases brought under the law are just now being considered in state court. There were considerable shifts in the state’s legislature in the wake of the 2010 elections, leading to the repeal bill. Prosecutors had…

The Orlando Sentinel in Florida recently called on the state to change the unusual way in which it arrives at death sentences, recommending instead unanimous jury decisions for a death sentence, the prevailing practice in the vast majority of states. In June, a federal judge declared Florida’s death penalty unconstitutional because it only requires a simple majority to decide whether aggravating factors exist and to recommend a death sentence to the presiding judge. In 2005, former Florida…

In a statement released on Nov. 22, Governor John Kitzhaber of Oregon announced a halt to all executions in the state. “I am convinced we can find a better solution that keeps society safe, supports the victims of crime and their families and reflects Oregon values,” he wrote. “I refuse to be a part of this compromised and inequitable system any longer; and I will not allow further executions while I am Governor.” His action halts the upcoming execution of Gary Haugen, an inmate who waived his…