Publications & Testimony

Judge Charles Baird of Austin, Texas, will con­duct a court of inquiry on October 6 – 7 (Update: Hearing post­poned until Oct. 14) to deter­mine whether Cameron Willingham (pic­tured) was wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed and exe­cut­ed for the death of his three daugh­ters in a fire orig­i­nal­ly deemed to be an arson. Willingham main­tained his inno­cence up until his exe­cu­tion in 2004. Former Texas Governor Mark…

Earlier in September, a Nevada dis­trict judge ordered the imme­di­ate release of Ronnie Milligan, who spent over 20 years on death row. Milligan, a Navy vet­er­an, may have been wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed of the 1980 killing of Zolihon Voinski. Milligan was the only one of three co-defen­­dants who was sen­tenced to death for the crime. Four years ago, the Nevada Supreme Court set new death penal­ty sen­tenc­ing pro­to­cols that tough­ened requirements for…

Late on Monday (September 27), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ordered U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel of San Jose, California, to recon­sid­er his plan that would have allowed the exe­cu­tion of Albert Greenwood Brown. In a rul­ing on September 24, Judge Fogel denied a stay of exe­cu­tion for Brown, and said that he lacked the time to inquire whether the state’s new lethal injec­tion pro­to­col con­tained suf­fi­cient safeguards against…

Brandon Rhode (pic­tured) in Georgia received a sec­ond reprieve fol­low­ing his sui­cide attempt just pri­or to his sched­uled exe­cu­tion on September 21. His exe­cu­tion is now set for September 27 at 7 pm, despite ques­tions about his men­tal com­pe­ten­cy. Rhode has been diag­nosed as suf­fer­ing from organ­ic brain dam­age and Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD). According to experts, men­tal defi­cien­cies asso­ci­at­ed with FASD exacerbate the…

Two men who were serv­ing life sen­tences were exon­er­at­ed on September 16 from a Mississippi prison after 30 years. Phillip Bivens and Bobby Ray Dixon were accused of the 1979 rape and mur­der of Eva Gail Patterson. Larry Ruffin, a co-defen­­dant who died in prison eight years ago, will be posthumously…

Brandon Rhode, a Georgia death row inmate, who was sched­uled for exe­cu­tion on September 21, received a tem­po­rary stay after he attempt­ed to com­mit sui­cide. The Georgia Supreme Court grant­ed a stay until September 24 to allow Rhode access to coun­sel after he was tak­en to the hos­pi­tal on the day of his sched­uled exe­cu­tion. His attor­ney filed a motion stat­ing that his client is incom­pe­tent, and his exe­cu­tion would violate…

The New Hampshire Commission to Study the Death Penalty held a hear­ing on September 16 at Keene State College, invit­ing the pub­lic to share their views on whether the state should repeal the death penal­ty. Among those tes­ti­fy­ing were a retired police chief, a for­mer pris­on­er, and the moth­er of a mur­der vic­tim, all of whom spoke against cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Margaret Hawthorn, whose daugh­ter was mur­dered last April, told the Commission that she did not want…

A new book by David Garland,​“Peculiar Institution: America’s Death Penalty in an Age of Abolition,” offers a fresh per­spec­tive on why the death penal­ty endures in the United States when so many oth­er coun­tries in the Western world have already abol­ished it. The book seeks to under­stand the per­sis­tence of the death penal­ty in the U.S. as a social fact, using soci­o­log­i­cal, his­tor­i­cal and legal analy­ses to explain the unique and peculiar…

On September 17, Governor Robert McDonnell announced that he would not grant clemen­cy to Teresa Lewis, who is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed in Virginia on September 23. Requests for a com­mu­ta­tion of her death sen­tence had come from thou­sands of indi­vid­u­als, from men­tal health groups, the European Union and nov­el­ist John Grisham. Many had point­ed to the fact that two co-defen­­dants in the mur­ders that sent Lewis to death row had…

According to the lat­est FBI Uniform Crime Report released on September 13, the nation­al mur­der rate has dropped from 5.4 (per 100,000 of pop­u­la­tion) in 2008 to 5.0 in 2009, an 8.1% decrease. Each region of the coun­try expe­ri­enced a decrease in its mur­der rate, with the Northeast expe­ri­enc­ing the most sig­nif­i­cant drop of 9%, from 4.2 to 3.8. As in the past, the Northeast con­tin­ued to have the low­est mur­der rate in the coun­try, while the South continued…