Publications & Testimony

Prominent lead­ers in Ohio are call­ing for a com­pre­hen­sive review of the state’s death penal­ty sys­tem, par­tic­u­lar­ly as an exe­cu­tion nears for a man whose guilt is being seri­ous­ly ques­tioned. Kevin Keith (pic­tured) has been on Ohio​’s death row for over 15 years and has an exe­cu­tion date of September 15. But new evi­dence has arisen about the unre­li­a­bil­i­ty of those who orig­i­nal­ly testified against…

A recent edi­to­r­i­al in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram raised ques­tions about Texas’ entire death penal­ty sys­tem, giv­en the pre­lim­i­nary find­ing by the Texas Forensic Science Commission that arson experts relied on out­dat­ed and flawed sci­ence dur­ing their inves­ti­ga­tion of a death penal­ty case. Cameron Willingham was exe­cut­ed in 2004 for set­ting a fire that killed his three daugh­ters in 1991 based on this faulty…

Cory Maples, an inmate on Alabama​’s death row, may pay for a sim­ple cler­i­cal error with his life. When copies of an Alabama court rul­ing in his case were sent to the New York law firm han­dling his appeals, both copies were returned unopened because the fir­m’s attor­neys rep­re­sent­ing Maples had left the firm. By the time the error was dis­cov­ered, Maples’s time to appeal had expired. So far, the firm has failed to per­suade a fed­er­al appeals court…

Five men on North Carolina​’s death row filed motions to have their death sen­tences reduced to life with­out parole based on data that indi­cate racial dis­par­i­ties in the state’s jus­tice sys­tem. These cas­es are the first to request appli­ca­tion of North Carolina’s Racial Justice Act, which allows the use of statewide or region­al sta­tis­ti­cal stud­ies to chal­lenge a death sen­tence because of racial bias. In all five cas­es, the vic­tims in the…

A new book by Andrew Hammel offers insights into the dif­fer­ent per­spec­tives on the death penal­ty in America and Europe. ​“Ending the Death Penalty: The European Experience in Global Perspective” exam­ines three coun­tries that do not have the death penal­ty (Germany, France and the United Kingdom), and ana­lyzes how cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment was end­ed in those coun­tries. Hammel ulti­mate­ly believes that the gov­ern­men­tal struc­ture, cul­ture, and political…

A new book writ­ten by Jim and Nancy Petro offers a com­pre­hen­sive analy­sis of how mis­car­riages of jus­tice result in wrong­ful con­vic­tions. Jim Petro, a for­mer Republican Attorney General of Ohio, has observed the jus­tice sys­tem from all sides and was appalled by the fre­quent mis­takes in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem. As attor­ney gen­er­al, he advo­cat­ed along with the Innocence Project to help free a man wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed of murder…

*Indicates states with no…

Cert. grant­ed, judg­ment vacat­ed, and remand­ed June 29, 2010…

On July 30, the Court of Appeal in Kenya unan­i­mous­ly held that manda­to­ry death sen­tences are uncon­sti­tu­tion­al, vio­lat­ing the right to life and inflict­ing inhu­man pun­ish­ment since the law does not pro­vide indi­vid­u­als the oppor­tu­ni­ty to present mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence. As a result, hun­dreds of pris­on­ers will be giv­en new sen­tenc­ing hear­ings at which they will be able to present rea­sons why they should be spared a death sen­tence. New procedures…

An exe­cu­tion date of September 23 was recent­ly set for Teresa Lewis, the only woman on Virginia​’s death row. Although a num­ber of oth­er peo­ple were involved in the same crime, includ­ing the actu­al shoot­ers of the two vic­tims, Lewis was the only per­son sen­tenced to death. She pled guilty at tri­al. Since being sent to death row in 2002, Lewis has tak­en respon­si­bil­i­ty and apol­o­gized for her actions. She has had an exem­plary record while in…