Publications & Testimony

Bruce Webster faces a fed­er­al exe­cu­tion despite new evi­dence – includ­ing eval­u­a­tions by three doc­tors – indi­cat­ing he is intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled. Although the U.S. Supreme Court banned the exe­cu­tion of the​“men­tal­ly retard­ed” (now referred to as​“intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled”) in 2002, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in April denied Webster’s request for a hear­ing on his men­tal capac­i­ty claim. The court found that…

Sharon Keller, the pre­sid­ing judge of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, received a pub­lic warn­ing from the State Commission on Judicial Conduct on July 16 for her con­duct in bar­ring access to the courts to a death row inmate who was about to be exe­cut­ed in 2007. The Commission said her actions con­sti­tut­ed​“will­ful or per­sis­tent con­duct that is clear­ly incon­sis­tent with the prop­er per­for­mance of her duties.” When request­ed at home to…

A recent poll con­duct­ed by Lake Research Partners found that a major­i­ty of Illinois reg­is­tered vot­ers pre­fer an alter­na­tive sen­tence to the death penal­ty for those who com­mit mur­der. The poll­sters sur­veyed vot­ers in April, and found that 43% believed that the penal­ty for mur­der should be life with no pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole and a require­ment to make resti­tu­tion to the victim’s fam­i­ly. Another 18% felt that the penal­ty for mur­der should be life in…

On July 14, Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen com­mut­ed the death sen­tence of Gaile Owens to life in prison. Owens, who was sen­tenced to death in 1986 for hir­ing a man to kill her hus­band, had accept­ed a deal to plead guilty to the crime in exchange for a sen­tence of life in prison. However, the man who did the killing refused to plead guilty, and pros­e­cu­tors then rescind­ed the deal for Owens. Both co-defen­­dants were sen­tenced to death. In…

An inmate who spent 27 years on Oklahoma​’s death row was released ear­li­er in July after he accept­ed a plea agree­ment with pros­e­cu­tors. James Fisher was con­vict­ed of mur­der and sen­tenced to death in 1983. A fed­er­al appeals court over­turned his death sen­tence because of inad­e­quate attor­ney rep­re­sen­ta­tion, thus send­ing the case back to tri­al. In 2005, Fisher was again con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death. The sec­ond death sentence was…

More often than many real­ize, inno­cent peo­ple false­ly con­fess to crimes they did not com­mit, accord­ing to a recent review in the Chicago Tribune. For exam­ple, Kevin Fox, was accused of sex­u­al­ly assault­ing and mur­der­ing his 3‑year-old daugh­ter in Illinois. He con­fessed to the crime after spend­ing 14 hours in inter­ro­ga­tion, dur­ing which police ignored his requests for a lawyer and told him that they would arrange for inmates to rape him in jail. Fox was later…

Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Charles Canaday issued an Administrative Order cre­at­ing a Florida Innocence Commission​“to con­duct a com­pre­hen­sive study of the caus­es of wrong­ful con­vic­tion and of mea­sures to pre­vent such con­vic­tions.” The Administrative Order cre­at­ing the com­mis­sion stat­ed the basis for the inves­ti­ga­tion:​“WHEREAS, the occur­rence of cas­es in which the inno­cent are con­vict­ed and punished…

Briefs from both par­ties in the Troy Davis case were filed in the U.S. District Court in Savannah, Georgia, on July 7, 2010. The fed­er­al judge con­sid­er­ing the pos­si­ble inno­cence of Davis, a death row inmate from Georgia who has been grant­ed a stay of exe­cu­tion from the U.S. Supreme Court, request­ed the briefs fol­low­ing an evi­den­tiary hear­ing on June 23 review­ing new evi­dence that had arisen since Davis’s orig­i­nal tri­al. A ruling is…

Defense attor­neys for Georgia cap­i­tal defen­dant Jamie Weis have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to block the state from seek­ing the death penal­ty because state pros­e­cu­tors hand picked the pub­lic defend­ers assigned to the case and because the case has lan­guished for years with­out ade­quate rep­re­sen­ta­tion. Prosecutors announced in August 2006 that they would seek the death penal­ty against Weis. By March of the next year, the state ran out of…

A recent state analy­sis of the costs of the death penal­ty in Indiana found the aver­age cost to a coun­ty for a tri­al and direct appeal in a cap­i­tal case was over ten times more than a life-with­­out-parole case. The aver­age death case cost $449,887, while the aver­age cost of a life-with­­out-parole case was only $42,658. The study, pre­pared by the Legislative Services Agency for the General Assembly, found that even while fac­tor­ing the longer…