Publications & Testimony

On November 9, the U.S. Supreme Court grant­ed cer­tio­rari in the case of Bobby v. Van Hook (No. 09 – 144) and issued a per curi­am opin­ion over­turn­ing a pan­el of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, which had grant­ed Robert Van Hook a new sen­tenc­ing hear­ing based on inef­fec­tive­ness of coun­sel. Van Hook had been con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death for a mur­der com­mit­ted in 1985 fol­low­ing an encounter in a bar. The Supreme Court held…

The Walla-Walla Union Bulletin is focus­ing on the state’s death penal­ty in a 4‑part series entitled, ​“Executing Justice.” The series exam­ines issues such as the costs of the death penal­ty, arbi­trari­ness, and the appeals process. Washington cur­rent­ly has eight men on death row, and has not had an exe­cu­tion since 2001. In almost 30 years, there has been only one non-con­sen­­su­al exe­cu­tion. Four defen­dants have been exe­cut­ed since the death…

A recent study of the mil­i­tary death penal­ty by Professor David Baldus revealed dis­par­i­ties depend­ing on whether the vic­tim in the under­ly­ing crime was also a mem­ber of the mil­i­tary or was a civil­ian. The paper was co-authored by Professors Catherine Grosso and George Woodworth and will be pub­lished by the Michigan Journal of Law Reform. The authors note that despite a 1984 exec­u­tive order that​“defined death eli­gi­ble murder in…

The Tennessee Law Review recent­ly pub­lished a com­pi­la­tion of arti­cles and essays from its colloquium, ​“The Past, Present, and Future of the Death Penalty,” held in February 2009. Contributors focused on issues that have influ­enced cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment through­out the course of his­to­ry. An arti­cle by Hugo Adam Bedau, a promi­nent death penal­ty schol­ar, address­es the issues of inno­cence and racial bias in the…

A recent opin­ion piece by the Editorial Director of the Clarion-Ledger in Mississippi points to the high costs of the death penal­ty as a way in which arbi­trari­ness enters into the appli­ca­tion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment:​“When is a crime a crime deserv­ing of death?,” David Hampton asks.​“When the coun­ty can afford it, of course.” The paper sup­ports the death penal­ty but the Editorial Director offered the exam­ple of Hinds County District Attorney Robert…

On November 10, the Georgia Supreme Court will hear argu­ments from attor­neys for a cap­i­tal defen­dant, Jamie Weis, and from the state con­cern­ing a three-and-a-half year delay in bring­ing his case to tri­al. For two years of that delay, the Weis defense team had no fund­ing, and for 14 months he was com­plete­ly with­out rep­re­sen­ta­tion. During this entire time, the state was staffed and fund­ed to pre­pare its pros­e­cu­tion of Weis. The Court will…

The costs of the death penal­ty have been a bur­den on var­i­ous coun­ties in Mississippi for many years. Quitman County was forced to raise tax­es for three years and bor­rowed $150,000 to pro­vide legal coun­sel to Robert Simon and Anthony Carr, who were sen­tenced to death for mur­ders com­mit­ted in 1990. A death-penal­­ty case​“is almost like light­ning strik­ing,” coun­ty admin­is­tra­tor Butch Scipper told The Wall Street…

A recent edi­to­r­i­al in America Magazine enti­tled The Price of Death reviewed the grow­ing prob­lems with the death penal­ty and stat­ed,​“It is time for the nation to con­clude once and for all that in our civ­i­lized soci­ety there is no place for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment.” The nation­al Catholic week­ly cit­ed the recent­ly botched exe­cu­tion in Ohio, racial dis­par­i­ties, and the pos­si­bil­i­ty of exe­cut­ing the inno­cent as rea­sons why public support…

On October 28, 2009, Travis County, Texas, pros­e­cu­tors moved to dis­miss all charges against Michael Scott and Robert Springsteen, who had been con­vict­ed of the mur­der of four teens in an Austin yogurt shop in 1991. (Springsteen was con­vict­ed in 2001; Scott in 2002.) Springsteen had been sen­tenced to death and Scott was sen­tenced to life in prison. The con­vic­tions of both men were over­turned by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals because they had…

A recent edi­to­r­i­al from the Aurora Sentinel in Colorado com­ment­ed on the botched exe­cu­tion of Romell Broom. The paper enti­tled its posi­tion as​“Time for America to move past cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment.” In addi­tion to cit­ing the prob­lems with lethal injec­tion, the paper not­ed the risk of exe­cut­ing the inno­cent and the U.S.‘s increas­ing iso­la­tion on the death penal­ty in the world. The edi­to­r­i­al con­tin­ut­ed,​“Even for those…