Publications & Testimony

The Death Penalty Information Center has released its lat­est report, ​“Smart on Crime: Reconsidering the Death Penalty in a Time of Economic Crisis.” The report com­bines an analy­sis of the costs of the death penal­ty with a new­ly released nation­al poll of police chiefs who put cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment at the bot­tom of their law enforcement…

Retired Federal Appeals Court Judge H. Lee Sarokin recent­ly offered a harsh cri­tique of the death penal­ty, espe­cial­ly chal­leng­ing the botched exe­cu­tion attempt of Romell Broom in Ohio in September. Citing moral­i­ty, arbi­trari­ness, and the dim prospects of clo­sure for the mur­der vic­tims’ fam­i­lies, Judge Sarokin called the impo­si­tion of the death penal­ty an errat­ic and flawed process that should not be per­mit­ted to con­tin­ue. ​“The sys­tem is too fraught with vari­ables to survive.

The lat­est Gallup Poll on the death penal­ty shows 65% of Americans sup­port the death penal­ty, sig­nif­i­cant­ly low­er than the 80% sup­port record­ed in 1994 and near the low­est sup­port of 64% in the past 25 years record­ed last year. Only 57% believe the death penal­ty is fair­ly applied, and 59% of Americans believe that an inno­cent per­son has been exe­cut­ed in the last five years. Gallup report­ed that sup­port for the death penal­ty is low­er if Americans are offered an explicit…

On October 13, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear Holland v. Florida, a case rais­ing the ques­tion of ​“whether ​‘gross neg­li­gence’ by a state-appoint­ed defense attor­ney in a death penal­ty case pro­vides a basis for extend­ing the time to file a fed­er­al habeas chal­lenge, in a case where the habeas plea was filed late despite repeat­ed instruc­tions from the client.” (sco​tus​blog​.com). In his peti­tion for cer­tio­rari to the Court, the…

“That Bird Has My Wings” is a new book by Jarvis Jay Masters, an inmate on San Quentin​’s death row in California. In this mem­oir, Masters tells his sto­ry from an ear­ly life with his heron-addict­ed moth­er to an abu­sive fos­ter home. He describes his escape to the illu­so­ry free­dom of the streets and through lone­ly nights spent in bus sta­tions and juve­nile homes, and final­ly to life inside the walls of San Quentin Prison. Using the nub and filler from a…

Two for­mer death row inmates who were charged with mur­der in a 1993 dri­ve-by shoot­ing were released on October 2 after spend­ing near­ly 14 years in prison, includ­ing years on Oklahoma’s death row. District Attorney David Prater dropped charges against Yancy Douglas (left),35, and Paris Powell (right), 36, after decid­ing the state’s key wit­ness was unre­li­able. ​“Ethically, and on my duty, I could not pro­ceed in this case and had to dis­miss it,”…

Michael Toney, who recent­ly became the 136^th per­son exon­er­at­ed and freed from death row since 1973, died in a car crash on October 3 in East Texas. He had been released from jail one month ago on September 2 after the state dropped all charges against him for a 1985 bomb­ing that killed three peo­ple. Toney’s con­vic­tion was over­turned on December 17, 2008 by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals because the pros­e­cu­tion sup­pressed evi­dence relat­ing to the…