Publications & Testimony

Acclaimed artist Robert Priseman has assem­bled some of his draw­ings of exe­cu­tion cham­bers with essays on the death penal­ty into a new book entitled ​“No Human Way to Kill.” The essays include the sto­ry of a moth­er whose daugh­ter was mur­dered, a death row inmate’s diary, and an inter­view with Jim Willett, for­mer war­den of the prison where Texas exe­cu­tions are held. Death penal­ty attor­ney Clive Stafford Smith writes in review,​“The etch­ings and accounts…

Former death row inmate Michael Toney was freed from prison in Texas on September 2 after the state’s Attorney General asked that his death sen­tence and crim­i­nal charges be dis­missed. Toney was sen­tenced to death for a fatal bomb­ing in 1985 that occurred at a trail­er park in Lake Worth. He has always main­tained his inno­cence, and there was no phys­i­cal evi­dence lead­ing to his con­vic­tion. His con­vic­tion and death sen­tence were overturned by…

Recent sci­en­tif­ic reports indi­cat­ing that Texas like­ly exe­cut­ed an inno­cent man have spurred wide cov­er­age and com­men­tary. Cameron Todd Willingham was exe­cut­ed in 2004 for the arson mur­der of his three chil­dren. Fire experts now say the blaze was like­ly an acci­dent. Excerpts…

Most Californians would sup­port a sen­tence of life with­out parole for those con­vict­ed of mur­der rather than the death penal­ty accord­ing to a new opin­ion poll released on September 1. If the life sen­tence was com­bined with a require­ment that the inmate work to make resti­tu­tion to the fam­i­ly of the vic­tim, only 26% of Californians would still opt for the death penal­ty. The poll was con­duct­ed by Prof. Craig Haney of the…

In a thor­ough and pen­e­trat­ing arti­cle pub­lished in The New Yorker on August 31, David Grann offers fur­ther evi­dence that Texas prob­a­bly exe­cut­ed an inno­cent man in 2004. Grann care­ful­ly exam­ines all the evi­dence that was used in the two-day tri­al in 1992 to con­vict Cameron Todd Willingham of mur­der by arson of his three young chil­dren. It is now well estab­lished through a series of inves­ti­ga­tions by other…

D. Grann,​“Trial by Fire: Did Texas Execute an Innocent Man?” The New Yorker, Sept. 7, 2009; Press Release, The Innocence Project, Aug. 31, 2009.W. Sessions,​“DNA Evidence and the Death Penalty,” Jurist, May 30, 2007Maurice Possley and Steve Mills. ​“Did this man die…for this man’s crime?” The Chicago Tribune. June…

Probably the most com­plete col­lec­tion of infor­ma­tion on exe­cu­tions car­ried out in the United States from colo­nial times to the mod­ern era was assem­bled by Watt Espy of Headland, Alabama. Espy died on August 13, 2009 at age 76, but his files and cat­a­log of exe­cu­tions was pre­served and trans­formed over the years into a search­able data­base by friends and schol­ars who appre­ci­at­ed his work. Much of his archive is now locat­ed at the State University of New…

In all states that use the death penal­ty, there are pro­vi­sions for sen­tenc­ing inmates to the alter­na­tive sen­tence of life with­out parole (LWOP). Prior to the U.S. Supreme Court’s rul­ing in Simmons v. South Carolina (1994), some states with LWOP did not inform the jury of this alter­na­tive even when so request­ed by the defense. Today, states apply a vari­ety of con­di­tions and use dif­fer­ing instruc­tions to inform the jury about this alternative…

According to the Chicago Tribune, the Texas Forensic Science Commission has received a report from a nation­al­ly known fire sci­en­tist that casts doubt on the guilt of Cameron Todd Willingham (pic­tured) who was exe­cut­ed in Texas in February 2004. Craig Beyler of Hughes Associates con­duct­ed a review for the Commission of the evi­dence used to con­vict Willingham of mur­der by arson, which led to his death sen­tence. Beyler con­clud­ed the Texas…

Georgia is seek­ing the death penal­ty for Khan Dinh Phan, a Vietnamese immi­grant charged with mur­der, but after four years the case has not come to tri­al because the state has failed to ade­quate­ly fund the defense. Phan’s defense attor­neys are ask­ing the Georgia Supreme Court to dis­miss the death penal­ty part of the pros­e­cu­tion.​“You don’t have to have the death penal­ty in Georgia, but if you have it, the Constitution requires you must pro­vide the defense the…