Publications & Testimony

The OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe), the world’s largest region­al secu­ri­ty orga­ni­za­tion com­prised of 56 States includ­ing the U.S., recent­ly pub­lished a 2009 Background Paper on The Death Penalty in the OSCE Area. It was pre­pared by the OSCE’s Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), and updates the 2008 back­ground paper of the same title. The 2009 paper high­lights the changes in sta­tus of the death…

The Council of the American Law Institute (ALI) recent­ly vot­ed to with­draw a sec­tion of its Model Penal Code con­cerned with cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment because of the​“cur­rent intractable insti­tu­tion­al and struc­tur­al obsta­cles to ensur­ing a min­i­mal­ly ade­quate sys­tem for admin­is­ter­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment.” The Council based its deci­sion on a study it com­mis­sioned to look into the prac­tice of the death penal­ty since the…

The University of Missouri-Kansas City Law Review recent­ly pub­lished a sym­po­sium issue of Death Penalty Stories, high­light­ing the role of the nar­ra­tive in the defense of death penal­ty cas­es. The com­pi­la­tion includes con­tri­bu­tions from lit­i­ga­tors who have used per­sua­sive nar­ra­tive in sup­port of a life sen­tence. Russell Stetler’s The Unknown Story of a Motherless Child chron­i­cles the case of Edgar H., who was con­vict­ed of killing four men…

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…