Publications & Testimony

Recently, a California man pled guilty to the 2006 mur­der of Highway Patrolman Earl Scott. The defen­dant, Columbus Allen Jr., whose pre-tri­al pro­ceed­ings took more than four years, will now spend the rest of his life in prison, hav­ing waived his appeals. The Stanislaus County dis­trict attor­ney orig­i­nal­ly sought the death penal­ty against Allen, but there were no guar­an­tees that ver­dict would have been reached. Additionally, when the death penal­ty is imposed in…

Although the num­ber of exe­cu­tions in Ohio in the past two years is sec­ond only to those in Texas, there is con­sid­er­able sup­port in Ohio for a review of the entire sys­tem. Two for­mer prison direc­tors, Reginald Wilkinson and Terry Collins, agree that death row cas­es should be reviewed to decide whether they are the​“worst of the worst.” Wilkinson (pic­tured), who was direc­tor from 1991 to 2006 and wit­nessed many executions,…

Ohio Governor Ted Strickland and Attorney General Richard Cordray recent­ly urged pros­e­cu­tors in sev­en crim­i­nal cas­es to allow DNA test­ing that could either prove inno­cence or con­firm the defen­dan­t’s guilt. The sev­en cas­es include one man cur­rent­ly on death row, Tyrone Noling, two inmates serv­ing long sen­tences, three men who are no longer in prison but want to clear their names, and a man who died in prison in 2006. Gov.

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…