Publications & Testimony

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…

On June 14, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Albert Holland, who lost his right to file a fed­er­al appeal of his death sen­tence when his lawyer missed the 1‑year dead­line estab­lished under the Anti-ter­ror­ism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA). The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit ruled that Holland’s attor­ney’s con­duct in miss­ing the dead­line was not egre­gious enough to war­rant setting aside…

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The upcom­ing exe­cu­tion of Ronnie Lee Gardner, who has opt­ed to be killed by a fir­ing squad in Utah on June 18, has attract­ed the atten­tion of many peo­ple of faith in the state. Hours before Gardner’s exe­cu­tion, promi­nent reli­gious lead­ers will gath­er for a vig­il to protest the exe­cu­tion. Religious lead­ers from groups often asso­ci­at­ed with being sup­port­ive of the death penal­ty have recent­ly voiced con­cerns about the prac­tice. The…

On June 8, California​’s Office of Administrative Law reject­ed the new lethal injec­tion pro­ce­dures pro­posed by the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, iden­ti­fy­ing sev­er­al pas­sages that con­flict­ed with state law, that were unclear, or failed to prop­er­ly state rea­sons for the new pro­ce­dures. There has been a de fac­to mora­to­ri­um on all exe­cu­tions in the state since 2006 after a fed­er­al judge ordered the state to revise its…

The International Harm Reduction Association (IHRA) recent­ly pub­lished a report on the use of the death penal­ty for drug crimes around the world. The report dis­tin­guish­es between coun­tries that have leg­is­la­tion allow­ing a death sen­tence for drug offens­es and those that actu­al­ly apply it in prac­tice. According to the report, 32 juris­dic­tions retain the death penal­ty for drug offens­es (out of the 58 coun­tries that have the death penal­ty for any offense),…

On June 4, Ohio Governor Ted Strickland grant­ed clemen­cy to Richard Nields, reduc­ing his death sen­tence to life with­out parole. Nields was sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed lat­er in June for the 1997 mur­der of his girl­friend in sub­ur­ban Cincinnati. In May, the Ohio Parole Board rec­om­mend­ed Nields for clemen­cy because of prob­lems with med­ical tes­ti­mo­ny at Nields’s tri­al. Dr. Paul Shrode, who was still in train­ing at the time of…

On Monday, June 7, the Pennsylvania State Government Management and Cost Study Commission will hear from experts on pro­pos­als to cut the costs of var­i­ous gov­ern­ment pro­grams. The Commission, estab­lished in 2009, is com­prised of pri­vate and pub­lic sec­tor cost-mind­ed lead­ers in Pennsylvania and has been charged with study­ing the man­age­ment of gov­ern­ment oper­a­tions and mak­ing rec­om­men­da­tions for cost-cut­t­ing mea­sures. Among the experts who will…