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In March of this year, New Mexico repealed the death penal­ty, becom­ing the fif­teenth state to abol­ish the prac­tice.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…

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…

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 par­tial time­line below of the attempt­ed exe­cu­tion of Romell Broom in Ohio on Sept. 15 was com­piled by the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Sept. 17, 2009; reporter Peter Krouse. The entire time­line can found by clicking…

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…

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…

In 2004 Cameron Todd Willingham was exe­cut­ed in Texas for mur­der­ing his chil­dren by arson. Since then, numer­ous foren­sic fire experts have con­clud­ed that the evi­dence of arson pre­sent­ed at Willingham’s tri­al could not sup­port the con­clu­sion that he caused the fire. That same year, Ernest Willis was freed from death row in Texas after the pros­e­cu­tion con­clud­ed that his con­vic­tion and death sen­tence for arson were…

Anthony Caravello was con­vict­ed of rape and mur­der for a crime he alleged­ly com­mit­ted in 1983 at age 15 in Florida. The pros­e­cu­tion sought the death penal­ty. Now DNA evi­dence from the crime scene points to anoth­er indi­vid­ual and may result in his exon­er­a­tion. The state is not con­test­ing his release. Caravello has an IQ of 67 and was con­vict­ed large­ly on the basis of his own state­ments, which he says were obtained from him after…

On September 9, The Bob Edwards Show on Sirius XM Radio inter­viewed Stephen Bright and Nina Morrison regard­ing the case of Troy Anthony Davis. Edwards is the award-win­n­ing for­mer host of National Public Radio’s​“Morning Edition.” The show offered this intro­duc­tion:​“Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court did some­thing it hadn’t done in 50 years – it ordered a stay of exe­cu­tion and court hear­ing for an inmate to attempt to prove his inno­cence. Since…

A recent arti­cle in the Fayetteville Observer in North Carolina cap­tures the poignant sto­ry of one man’s life on death row. James Floyd Davis is a Vietnam vet­er­an who lashed out with a burst of vio­lence four­teen years ago, killing three peo­ple includ­ing his boss who had fired him a few days before. He suf­fers from men­tal ill­ness and post-trau­­mat­ic stress dis­or­der. Through the inter­ven­tion of a ther­a­pist who also served in Vietnam, it was learned…