Publications & Testimony

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,…

Henry Skinner is sched­uled (update below) for exe­cu­tion in Texas on February 24 despite the lack of DNA test­ing of crit­i­cal evi­dence from the crime scene that could lead to his exon­er­a­tion. Skinner has always main­tained his inno­cence of the 1993 mur­der of his girl­friend and her two grown sons in Tampa, Texas. At his tri­al, the pros­e­cu­tion pre­sent­ed the results of selec­tive DNA test­ing on some of the crime evi­dence that tend­ed to prove…

The Medical Society of New Jersey recent­ly approved a res­o­lu­tion call­ing upon the American Medical Association (AMA) to advo­cate for the​“abo­li­tion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment by each juris­dic­tion in the United States of America … and replace it with life in prison with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole.” Among the stat­ed ratio­nales for the res­o­lu­tion, the soci­ety not­ed that​“Numerous reports doc­u­ment per­ni­cious and recur­ring errors and…

More pros­e­cu­tors in Texas are opt­ing not to seek the death penal­ty, accord­ing to Randall County District Attorney James Farren, a trend that has been evi­dent over the last decade and will like­ly con­tin­ue. Many pros­e­cu­tors weigh the uncer­tain­ty in secur­ing a death sen­tence against the high lit­i­ga­tion costs as rea­sons for opt­ing for oth­er alter­na­tive sen­tences even when the death penal­ty is avail­able.​“The facts of the case are…

The Death Penalty Information Center has recent­ly updat­ed its infor­ma­tion packet entitled ​“Death Penalty Resources for Communities of Faith.” This pack­et was ini­tial­ly devel­oped to help a wide spec­trum of reli­gious groups address the death penal­ty by pro­vid­ing infor­ma­tion, dis­cus­sion ques­tions, and mul­ti-media resources. These mate­ri­als offer a frame­work use­ful for any dis­cus­sion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment and do not direct­ly involve religious or…