Publications & Testimony

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…

Lawyers for Cameron Todd Willingham​’s fam­i­ly recent­ly pre­sent­ed expert tes­ti­mo­ny at a court of inquiry in Texas to deter­mine whether Willingham was wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed and exe­cut­ed for start­ing a fire that killed his chil­dren. The lawyers pre­sent­ed tes­ti­mo­ny from nine experts who have reviewed evi­dence pre­sent­ed by fire mar­shals and found​“many crit­i­cal errors,” as one report stat­ed. Gerald Hurst, who pub­lished a report…

Lawyers for Jeffrey Landrigan, an Arizona death row inmate sched­uled for exe­cu­tion on October 26, have filed a motion ask­ing courts to com­pel the state to reveal its source of a drug to be used in his lethal injec­tion. Despite a nation­wide short­age of sodi­um thiopen­tal, Arizona recent­ly announced that it has obtained new sup­plies of the drug. The announce­ment came the same day that California filed a notice in federal court…

On October 13, law enforce­ment offi­cers from the U.S. and Europe held the first pub­lic dis­cus­sion about whether the death penal­ty helps or hurts in keep­ing 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 in rela­tion to alter­na­tives. Former Detective Superintendent Bob Denmark of Lancashire Constabulary, England, who…

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…