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…

In an his­toric deci­sion, a pan­el of judges out­side of the state’s court sys­tem unan­i­mous­ly vot­ed to exon­er­ate and release Gregory Taylor, a North Carolina man who was impris­oned for near­ly 17 years for first-degree mur­der. In April 1993, Taylor was con­vict­ed of the 1991 mur­der of Jacquetta Thomas, a pros­ti­tute found dead at the end of a cul-de-sac in Raleigh. Police arrest­ed Taylor after find­ing his SUV about 100 yards from the crime scene, even though…

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…

Mike Hendricks, colum­nist for the Kansas City Star, recent­ly described how the state goes through the motions of hav­ing a death penal­ty, but with no imme­di­ate prospect of its use after 16 years. Kansas rein­stat­ed the death penal­ty in 1994; eight years ago, the Lansing Correctional Facility held an open house for the media, show­cas­ing its new death cham­ber. The room was then sealed and has remained untouched. Ten pris­on­ers await exe­cu­tion, one of whom has been…

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…

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 recent edi­to­r­i­al in Pennsylvania’s Patriot-News rec­om­mend­ed doing away with the death penal­ty as a way to address the state bud­get cri­sis.​“Problems are entrenched in the sys­tem and giv­en its high cost, Pennsylvania should def­i­nite­ly put the idea of doing away with the death penal­ty on the table,” the paper wrote. Among the rea­sons cit­ed was the fact that the death penal­ty in Pennsylvania is essen­tial­ly a very…

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…

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,…

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,…