Publications & Testimony

A recent edi­to­r­i­al in the Salt Lake Tribune calls for Utahns and their elect­ed lead­ers to con­sid­er aban­don­ing the death penal­ty cit­ing that ​“state-spon­sored killing of a human being, no mat­ter how heinous the crime, is per­mit­ted by a sys­tem that has been proven beyond doubt to be inher­ent­ly capri­cious, unfair and shock­ing­ly fal­li­ble.” The edi­to­r­i­al also point­ed to the declin­ing use of the death penal­ty nation­wide, with an all-time high of 328 death sen­tences in 1994 compared…

Scott Phillips, a soci­ol­o­gy and crim­i­nol­o­gy pro­fes­sor at the University of Denver, pub­lished a study last month in the Law & Society Review focus­ing on the impo­si­tion of death sen­tences in rela­tion to the vic­tim’s social sta­tus. Phillips stud­ied cap­i­tal cas­es in Harris County (Houston), Texas, between 1992 and 1999 and found that the social sta­tus of the vic­tim in the under­ly­ing mur­der had a sig­nif­i­cant influ­ence on whether the death penal­ty would be sought and…

The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund recent­ly released its Fall 2009 edi­tion of Death Row USA, a report detail­ing death row pop­u­la­tions across the United States. According to the report, California, Florida and Texas con­tin­ue to lead the nation in the num­ber of death row inmates, with California (694) hav­ing a death row pop­u­la­tion almost twice as large as either Florida (395) or Texas (339). In addi­tion, while Florida’s and Texas’ death row…

In California, a state that is spend­ing $137 mil­lion per year on the death penal­ty, many homi­cide inves­ti­ga­tions have been put on hold due to a bud­get cri­sis in Los Angeles. The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) is forc­ing offi­cers to sus­pend work on their cas­es and take days or weeks off because of new over­time lim­its. One of the LAPD’s most pro­duc­tive inves­ti­ga­tors sat idle for 6 weeks, unable to fol­low old leads or to pick up on new ones because he had accumulated…

Master Sgt. Timothy Hennis was con­vict­ed in 1986 of mur­der­ing three peo­ple in North Carolina. He was tried in state court. However, his con­vic­tion was over­turned because of weak evi­dence and improp­er state­ments by the pros­e­cu­tion. He was re-tried, and the jury vot­ed unan­i­mous­ly for his acquit­tal in 1989. The evi­dence from the crime scene was pre­served and, when DNA test­ing became avail­able, a re-eval­u­a­tion of the evi­dence point­ed to the pos­si­bil­i­ty that…

David Kofoed, CSI Director of Douglas County, Nebraska was con­vict­ed last month of plant­i­ng evi­dence dur­ing a mur­der inves­ti­ga­tion, cast­ing doubts on the legit­i­ma­cy of oth­er cas­es on which he worked. Kofoed’s work came into ques­tion after a 2006 inves­ti­ga­tion into the mur­der of Wayne and Sharmon Stock. The vic­tims’ nephew was one of the lead­ing sus­pects in the mur­der, despite the lack of phys­i­cal evi­dence tying him and an accom­plice to the killing. The…

Innocence groups from around the coun­try, along with a group of eye­wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny experts, recent­ly filed ami­cus briefs ask­ing the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case of Kevin Keith, an Ohio man who is on death row for fatal­ly shoot­ing three peo­ple in 1994. The inno­cence groups stat­ed that Keith’s con­vic­tion was based on faulty eye­wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny that was improp­er­ly influ­enced by the police. In addi­tion, Keith’s coun­sel uncov­ered another…

James Abbott, Chief of Police of West Orange, New Jersey, recent­ly spoke at an inter­na­tion­al forum regard­ing his expe­ri­ence as a mem­ber of the New Jersey Death Penalty Study Commission. Chief Abbott, who was Governor Codey’s Republican appointee to the Commission, said he did not antic­i­pate chang­ing his mind regard­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, but was great­ly influ­enced by the sto­ries of mur­der vic­tims’ fam­lies who tes­ti­fied dur­ing the commission’s…