Publications & Testimony

On June 23 – 24, U.S. District Judge William T. Moore heard new tes­ti­mo­ny in the case of death row inmate Troy Anthony Davis, who was giv­en an unusu­al chance by the U.S. Supreme Court to​“clear­ly estab­lish” his inno­cence after almost 20 years. Davis was con­vict­ed in 1991 of the shoot­ing of a Savannah police offi­cer based on eye­wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny that iden­ti­fied him as the shoot­er. During the recent hear­ings in fed­er­al court, four…

On June 24, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Billy Joe Magwood, an Alabama defen­dant con­vict­ed of a 1979 mur­der whose chal­lenge to the state’s death penal­ty law had been ruled untime­ly by low­er courts. Magwood’s first death sen­tence was over­turned, but he was sen­tenced to death a sec­ond time. When Magwood filed a habeas peti­tion chal­leng­ing his new death sen­tence, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit held that Magwood’s…

Judge Norman Fletcher served on the Georgia Supreme Court and was in the major­i­ty that upheld Troy Davis​’s orig­i­nal con­vic­tion and death sen­tence on direct appeal. However, Judge Fletcher has not­ed he was not on the court after many of the wit­ness­es from Davis’s tri­al recant­ed their tes­ti­mo­ny, and he prob­a­bly would have vot­ed in favor of a new evi­den­tiary hear­ing for Davis if he was on the court today. Judge Fletcher…

The Washington Post recent­ly pub­lished an edi­to­r­i­al call­ing for Congress to rewrite the part of the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 that gov­erns legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion for indi­gent death-penal­­ty defen­dants. The law allows a fast-track for fed­er­al appeals of state cap­i­tal con­vic­tions pro­vid­ed states guar­an­tee and pay for a sys­tem of legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion that cov­ers all cap­i­tal defen­dants . Originally, the program…

Joseph P. Nadeau, who served on New Hampshire​’s Supreme Court for six years and as a judge for 37 years, recent­ly tes­ti­fied before the state’s death penal­ty com­mis­sion about his oppo­si­tion to the prac­tice. In an op-ed, Judge Nadeau sum­ma­rized the moral and prac­ti­cal rea­sons why he believes cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment should be repealed.​“Our think­ing evolves, as peo­ple, tech­nol­o­gy, and soci­eties progress,” he said.​“And what is acceptable…

Amnesty International recent­ly released its annu­al report on inter­na­tion­al abus­es and progress in the field of human rights:​“The State of the World’s Human Rights.” The report cov­ers January to December 2009 and address­es human rights issues in every coun­try around the world. The report also high­lights coun­tries’ involve­ment in inter­na­tion­al and region­al human rights treaties. Among the nations in the Americas, the United States had…

On June 18, a fed­er­al appeals court in Atlanta held that the bur­den Georgia places on death-penal­­ty defen­dants to prove they are intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled, and thus exempt from the death penal­ty, is uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit said that requir­ing defen­dants to prove intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty (men­tal retar­da­tion)​“beyond a rea­son­able doubt” vio­lates the Eighth Amendment’s ban against cruel and…

Voices of the Death Penalty Debate: A Citizen’s Guide to Capital Punishment is a new book that explores argu­ments for and against the death penal­ty through tes­ti­mo­ny giv­en at the his­toric 2004 and 2005 hear­ings in New York on whether the state’s death penal­ty should be rein­stat­ed. The state’s law was struck down by the N.Y. Court of Appeals in 2004. Authored by Russell Murphy, a Suffolk University Law School pro­fes­sor, the book walks readers through…

On June 14, the U.S. Supreme Court grant­ed cer­tio­rari in Cullen v. Pinholster. In 1984, Scott Pinholster was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death for killing two men dur­ing a bur­glary in Los Angeles, California. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit over­turned Pinholster’s death sen­tence because of inef­fec­tive­ness of coun­sel since his lawyer did not give the jury evi­dence of Pinholster’s men­tal illness during…

Texas Judge Paul C. Murphy recent­ly ordered pros­e­cu­tors to hand over key evi­dence from a 1989 mur­der case to the Innocence Project and the Texas Observer for DNA test­ing. In 2007, the Innocence Project and the Observer filed suit to obtain a one-inch strand of hair that alleged­ly impli­cat­ed Claude Howard Jones (pic­tured) in the killing of a liquor store own­er in San Jacinto County. Other than vague eyewitness…