Publications & Testimony

In March of this year, New Mexico repealed the death penal­ty, becom­ing the fif­teenth state to abol­ish the prac­tice. The law, how­ev­er, is not retroac­tive, and does not affect two inmates cur­rent­ly on death row as well as any defen­dant sen­tenced to death for crimes com­mit­ted before the law was to take effect in July 2009. One of the leg­is­la­tors who vot­ed to end the death penal­ty, part­ly because of its high costs, was Republican guber­na­to­r­i­al can­di­date Rep. Janice…

On September 22, the House Subcommittee on Terrorism, Crime and Homeland Security of the Judiciary Committee held hear­ings on the re-autho­riza­tion of the Inno­cence Protection Act. Among those mak­ing pre­sen­ta­tions were not­ed defense attor­neys Stephen Bright (pic­tured), President of the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta, and Barry Scheck, Co-Director of the Innocence Project in New York. Mr. Bright empha­sized that the best way to…

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled on September 16 that death row inmate Charles Hood is not enti­tled to a new tri­al despite the fact that the judge and the pros­e­cu­tor from his tri­al had been hav­ing an affair. In a 6‑to‑3 deci­sion, the court held that Hood should have raised the argu­ment that the affair taint­ed his tri­al in ear­li­er appeals of his 1990 mur­der con­vic­tion. The court’s deci­sion revers­es the find­ings of a…

More infor­ma­tion is being report­ed about the botched exe­cu­tion-attempt of Romell Broom yes­ter­day (Sept. 15) in Ohio. According to the Associated Press, the cor­rec­tion­al offi­cers encoun­tered so much dif­fi­cul­ty in find­ing a suit­able vein for the lethal injec­tion that, after an hour, Broom attempt­ed to assist them by mov­ing on his side, slid­ing the rub­ber tub­ing up and down his arm, and flex­ing his fin­gers. A vein was found, but it col­lapsed as the…

Romell Broom (pic­tured) was to be exe­cut­ed at 10 AM on Tuesday, September 15, in Ohio. The exe­cu­tion was delayed as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit con­sid­ered grant­i­ng him a hear­ing. When that tem­po­rary stay was lift­ed, the exe­cu­tion process began again with a search­ing for a suit­able vein in Broom’s arm to insert an IV and to inject the lethal chem­i­cals. However, after two hours of fruit­less endeav­or, the cor­rec­tion­al offi­cers were unable to…