Publications & Testimony

A grow­ing back­log of death penal­ty cas­es and delays in start­ing tri­als in Arizona’s Maricopa County has forced Superior Court judges to apply pres­sure on both sides by refus­ing to post­pone tri­al dates and demand­ing that attor­neys dis­cuss set­tle­ments. The back­log came as a result of County Attorney Andrew Thomas’s aggres­sive pur­suit of death sen­tences in more than 120 cas­es since tak­ing office in 2005. The num­ber of death penalty…

Mark White, a for­mer gov­er­nor of Texas and strong sup­port­er of the death penal­ty, recent­ly expressed seri­ous reser­va­tions about the prac­tice in Texas.​“There is a very strong case to be made for a review of our death penal­ty statutes and even look at the pos­si­bil­i­ty of hav­ing life with­out parole so we don’t look up one day and deter­mine that we as the State of Texas have exe­cut­ed some­one who is in fact inno­cent,” he…

Scott Phillips, a pro­fes­sor in the Department of Sociology and Criminology at the University of Denver, recent­ly pub­lished a study that revealed dis­par­i­ties in who receives the death penal­ty inTexas. Phillips stud­ied the 504 death penal­ty cas­es that occurred between 1992 and 1999 in Harris County (Houston and sur­round­ing areas). Harris County is the largest juris­dic­tion in the United States to use a court-appoint­­ment sys­tem for selecting…

The Death Penalty Information Center has released its latest report, ​“Smart on Crime: Reconsidering the Death Penalty in a Time of Economic Crisis.” The report com­bines an analy­sis of the costs of the death penal­ty with a new­ly released nation­al poll of police chiefs who put cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment at the bot­tom of their law enforcement…

Retired Federal Appeals Court Judge H. Lee Sarokin recent­ly offered a harsh cri­tique of the death penal­ty, espe­cial­ly chal­leng­ing the botched exe­cu­tion attempt of Romell Broom in Ohio in September. Citing moral­i­ty, arbi­trari­ness, and the dim prospects of clo­sure for the mur­der vic­tims’ fam­i­lies, Judge Sarokin called the impo­si­tion of the death penal­ty an errat­ic and flawed process that should not be per­mit­ted to con­tin­ue.​“The sys­tem is too fraught…

The lat­est Gallup Poll on the death penal­ty shows 65% of Americans sup­port the death penal­ty, sig­nif­i­cant­ly low­er than the 80% sup­port record­ed in 1994 and near the low­est sup­port of 64% in the past 25 years record­ed last year. Only 57% believe the death penal­ty is fair­ly applied, and 59% of Americans believe that an inno­cent per­son has been exe­cut­ed in the last five years. Gallup report­ed that sup­port for the death penal­ty is low­er if Americans are…

On October 13, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear Holland v. Florida, a case rais­ing the ques­tion of​“whether​‘gross neg­li­gence’ by a state-appoint­ed defense attor­ney in a death penal­ty case pro­vides a basis for extend­ing the time to file a fed­er­al habeas chal­lenge, in a case where the habeas plea was filed late despite repeat­ed instruc­tions from the client.” (sco​tus​blog​.com). In his peti­tion for certiorari…

The annu­al crime report released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation showed a decline in the nation­al mur­der rate. The rate dropped 4.7% in 2008 com­pared to 2007. Despite a region­al decline, the South still has the high­est mur­der rate among the four geo­graph­ic regions: 6.6 mur­ders per 100,000 peo­ple, high­er than the nation­al rate of 5.4. The Northeast still main­tains the low­est mur­der rate at 4.2. There were 16,272 murders or…

“That Bird Has My Wings” is a new book by Jarvis Jay Masters, an inmate on San Quentin​’s death row in California. In this mem­oir, Masters tells his sto­ry from an ear­ly life with his heron-addic­t­ed moth­er to an abu­sive fos­ter home. He describes his escape to the illu­so­ry free­dom of the streets and through lone­ly nights spent in bus sta­tions and juve­nile homes, and final­ly to life inside the walls of San Quentin Prison. Using the nub and…

A recent op-ed in the Florida Times-Union point­ed to con­tin­u­ing prob­lems in Florida’s death penal­ty sys­tem despite pri­or rec­om­men­da­tions for change in an American Bar Association report three years ago. The arti­cle was writ­ten by Raoul Cantero III, a for­mer Florida Supreme Court jus­tice appoint­ed by Gov. Jeb Bush, and Mark Schlakman, a senior pro­gram direc­tor for Florida State University’s Center for the Advancement of Human…