Publications & Testimony

Texas District Judge Kevin Fine sched­uled a hear­ing in a death penal­ty case to con­sid­er whether there is a sub­stan­tial risk that Texas’s death penal­ty laws could result in the exe­cu­tion of an inno­cent per­son. The hear­ing, expect­ed to last two weeks, will like­ly include tes­ti­mo­ny from experts around the coun­try. Casey Kiernan, one of the attor­neys for the defen­dant, John Green, filed a pre-tri­al motion regard­ing the issue of innocence,…

On June 29, the U.S. Supreme Court returned a death penal­ty case to the Georgia Supreme Court to recon­sid­er whether the fail­ures of the defen­dan­t’s lawyer prob­a­bly affect­ed the sen­tence he received. Demarcus Sears was sen­tenced to death in 1993 for the mur­der of a woman in Cobb County. Sears’ attor­neys attempt­ed to con­vince jurors to spare his life by say­ing that he came from a sta­ble and lov­ing fam­i­ly who would be dev­as­tat­ed if he…

On June 24, the Democrat Herald (Oregon) fea­tured an edi­to­r­i­al about Randy Lee Guzek, who was recent­ly sen­tenced to death for the fourth time for mur­ders com­mit­ted in 1987. The Oregon Supreme Court over­turned his three pre­vi­ous death sen­tences on var­i­ous grounds. The edi­to­r­i­al ques­tioned whether such a death penal­ty process made any sense.​“If the pro­ce­dures are so dif­fi­cult that Oregon…

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…