Publications & Testimony

Amicus, an orga­ni­za­tion based in the United Kingdom that assists in the legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion of those await­ing cap­i­tal tri­als in the United States, will be host­ing a mock tri­al at the Emmanuel Centre (pic­tured) in Westminster, London on Tuesday, March 2, begin­ning at 6:30 PM. The ques­tion is whether the death penal­ty in the U.S. per­verts the course of jus­tice. The tri­al will be presided over by Lord Woolf, Geoffrey Robertson, QC, and Sir Louis Blom-Cooper,…

Messages of Life from Death Row fea­tures cor­re­spon­dence from Texas death row inmate Roger McGowen to soci­ol­o­gist and writer Pierre Pradervand. McGowen’s let­ters describe his life on death row and point to flaws in the American crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem, espe­cial­ly the arbi­trary nature of the death penal­ty. The pub­lish­er, BookSurge, said the book offers a ​“unique jux­ta­po­si­tion of care­ful­ly select­ed texts next to the heartfelt and…

A bill that would repeal the death penal­ty in South Dakota was sched­uled for a hear­ing in the House State Affairs Committee on February 10. The bill, HB 1245, would man­date life impris­on­ment with­out parole for peo­ple con­vict­ed of Class A felonies. South Dakota has only exe­cut­ed one per­son in the last 50 years, and cur­rent­ly has 3 peo­ple on death row. The bill is spon­sored by Rep. Gerald Lange (D‑Madison), and strong­ly sup­port­ed by the…

A new book by David Dow, The Autobiography of an Execution, cap­tures the author’s per­son­al and legal expe­ri­ences in rep­re­sent­ing over 100 inmates on death row. The book is a per­son­al mem­oir of Dow’s encounter with the death penal­ty sys­tem, as he rep­re­sents defen­dants and wit­ness­es their exe­cu­tions. Publisher’s Weekly called the book ​“sober­ing, grip­ping and can­did.” Dahlia Lithwick of Slate said it is ​“a pow­er­ful collage of…

The Senate Judiciary Committee in Kansas recent­ly advanced (7 – 4) leg­is­la­tion that would elim­i­nate cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the state and replace it with a sen­tence of life with­out parole. Kansas enact­ed its cur­rent death penal­ty law in 1994, but has not exe­cut­ed any­one for more than 40 years. There are cur­rent­ly ten men on the state’s death row, though none are close to exe­cu­tion. The abo­li­tion leg­is­la­tion, which was orig­i­nal­ly intro­duced by Republican Sen. Carolyn McGinn to…

Edward Lee Elmore, South Carolina’s longest-serv­ing death row inmate, was spared from exe­cu­tion when a state cir­cuit court ruled he suf­fered from men­tal retar­da­tion. The sen­tence rever­sal came almost 28 years after Elmore was sent to death row in 1982 for a sex­u­al assault and mur­der, and 8 years after the U.S. Supreme Court held in Atkins v. Virginia that the exe­cu­tion of the men­tal­ly retard­ed is a cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment, and therefore violates…

Michael Traynor, President Emeritus of the pres­ti­gious American Law Institute (ALI), called the ALI’s recent with­draw­al of its mod­el death penal­ty law ​“a strik­ing repu­di­a­tion from the very orga­ni­za­tion that pro­vid­ed the blue­print for death penal­ty laws in this coun­try.” He not­ed that the ALI had care­ful­ly reviewed the death penal­ty process, and that ​“Now, after search­ing analy­sis by our coun­try’s top legal minds, the insti­tute has concluded…