Publications & Testimony

Alabama has adopt­ed new leg­is­la­tion that allows some inmates to obtain DNA test­ing on old evi­dence. However, crit­ics have point­ed out impor­tant lim­i­ta­tions in the new law. The new pro­ce­dure is lim­it­ed to inmates who were con­vict­ed of cap­i­tal crimes, includ­ing those on death row. The Department of Forensic Sciences request­ed this lim­i­ta­tion because they believed they did not have the resources to han­dle a larg­er class of cas­es. Even those con­vict­ed of a cap­i­tal crime face fur­ther hur­dles. For…

Florida Governor Charlie Crist recent­ly chose two death row inmates for exe­cu­tion from among many eli­gi­ble pris­on­ers on the state’s death row, but no rea­sons were giv­en for his choice. He joins a long line of Florida gov­er­nors who made the deci­sion of who lives and who dies with­out expla­na­tion of their selec­tion method. ​“I don’t know how they decide,” said John Marek’s lawyer, Marty McClain, a vet­er­an death-row attor­ney who has defend­ed hun­dreds of inmates.

California is fac­ing an unprece­dent­ed bud­get deficit and vot­ers recent­ly reject­ed a series of tax reforms. To meet the cri­sis, Gov. Schwarzenegger has pro­posed sell­ing state owned prop­er­ty, includ­ing San Quentin State Prison, to rem­e­dy the $21.3 bil­lion deficit. Natasha Minsker of the Northern California ACLU, writ­ing in the Daily Kos, has pro­posed that California elim­i­nate or sus­pend the death penal­ty as a way of sav­ing a large amount of mon­ey. According to her arti­cle, the state would save…

The recent 19 – 17 vote in the Connecticut Senate to abol­ish the death penal­ty was made pos­si­ble by three sen­a­tors who moved from sup­port­ing the death penal­ty to oppos­ing it. Sen. Gary LeBeau had long favored the death penal­ty, part­ly because of ​“polit­i­cal cal­cu­la­tions.” His stance shift­ed in the last cou­ple of years wit­ness­ing a series of high-pro­file exon­er­a­tions of inno­cent peo­ple. At 61, LeBeau, a retired school­teacher, came to view life as a gift, one ​“we…

The death penal­ty in California is enor­mous­ly expen­sive com­pared to the sen­tence of life with­out parole. One death penal­ty case has already tak­en 28 years and may cost $5 mil­lion dol­lars. Chief Assistant Attorney General Dane Gillette, head of the crim­i­nal divi­sion, said Michael Ray Burgener’s case has been delayed because of legal­ly required reviews. ​“When you have a new judge, you have to have that judge take a look at the record and base their deci­sion on the review of the record.”…