Publications & Testimony

California recent­ly released its revised lethal injec­tion guide­lines, fol­low­ing a June pub­lic hear­ing on the pro­to­col. The 25-page doc­u­ment indi­cates small revi­sions, out­lin­ing such items as to when the cur­tains remain open in the exe­cu­tion cham­ber to def­i­n­i­tions of the term ​“chap­lain” and ​“lethal injec­tion room.” Natasha Minsker, the Death Penalty Policy Director of the ACLU of Northern California called the revi­sions super­fi­cial. Minsker added, ​“In the…

On January 12, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Smith v. Spisak. After Frank Spisak was sen­tenced to death in Ohio and his ini­tial appeals were denied, he filed a habeas cor­pus peti­tion claim­ing that: 1) the jury instruc­tions and ver­dict forms used at his tri­al uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly required the jury to be unan­i­mous in choos­ing any mit­i­gat­ing fac­tors; and 2) his attor­ney’s clos­ing argu­ment was so inad­e­quate as to…

Louisiana has seen a steep decline in exe­cu­tions com­pared to pre­vi­ous decades, with only three exe­cu­tions in the last ten years. This is in stark con­trast to the eight men who were elec­tro­cut­ed with­in the span of 11 weeks in 1987, and it fol­lows a nation­wide trend of declin­ing exe­cu­tions and impo­si­tion of death…

“Media and Criminal Justice: The CSI Effect,” is a new book by Dennis J. Stevens, illus­trat­ing how tele­vi­sion pro­grams and media cov­er­age affect pub­lic per­cep­tion of crim­i­nal jus­tice. The author, who teach­es at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte and Belmont Abbey College, main­tains that tele­vi­sion shows like ​“CSI” can give the false impres­sion that all crimes are eas­i­ly solved through advanced foren­sic sci­ence. The author also address­es the prob­lem of wrongful…

A recent arti­cle in the American Police Beat high­lights the con­cerns that police chiefs have with the costs and inef­fec­tive­ness of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. The arti­cle notes, ​“The prob­lem, accord­ing to the police chiefs is the fact that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment is cost­ing states hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars for rel­a­tive­ly few exe­cu­tions and noth­ing in the way of crime deter­rence… Hiring more police offi­cers, fight­ing drug abuse, longer prison sen­tences and improved…

A new book authored by Todd Peppers and Laura Trevvett Anderson, ​“Anatomy of An Execution,” fol­lows the sto­ry of Douglas Christopher Thomas, a juve­nile offend­er who was exe­cut­ed in Virginia in 2000. Thomas was con­vict­ed of a dou­ble homi­cide in 1990 and sen­tenced to death in 1991. He was one of the last juve­niles put to death before the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the exe­cu­tion of those under the age of 18 at the time of their crime to be uncon­sti­tu­tion­al in 2005…