Publications & Testimony

On Nov.19, a Davidson County judge ruled that Tennessee’s lethal injection procedure was unconstitutional, possibly delaying the execution of Stephen Michael West and others on death row. Chancellor Claudia Bonnyman, who issued the ruling, said that the state’s lethal injection procedure “allows for death by suffocation while conscious,” because it did not specify a sufficient dosage for sodium thiopental, the first of three drugs used in lethal injections. In Baze v. Rees, the U.S. Supreme…

Gerald Kogan, a former Florida Supreme Court Justice, and Mark White, former governor of Texas (pictured), recently urged the U.S. Supreme Court to consider the death penalty appeal of Boyd v. Allen because of inadequate defense representation. According to the authors of an op-ed appearing in the National Law Journal, William Boyd’s defense lawyers in Alabama were barely paid and did very little to try to save his life. They failed to present mitigating evidence of Boyd’s abused childhood…

In November, a preliminary resolution was presented to the United Nations General Assembly for a moratorium on the use of the death penalty around the world. Panama, the European Union, Paraguay, Philippines, East Timor, Rwanda, Mozambique and Russia were among the resolution’s sponsors. Other co-sponsors included nations in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The resolution received 107 votes in favor, 38 against and 36 abstentions. In 2007, a similar resolution was adopted by the General…

The Illinois Capital Reform Study Committee, created by the state legislature in 2003 and headed by Thomas P. Sullivan, a former U.S. Attorney, recently issued its sixth and final report on the Illinois death penalty. The report found that taxpayers are spending tens of millions of dollars on the prosecution of a large number of death-penalty cases, even though relatively few result in actual death sentences. Since 2003, 18 people have been sentenced to death, even though 500 defendants had…

TELECONFERENCE FOR JOURNALISTS — TUES. NOV. 16 — 10 AM EASTERN: Information for journalists concerning the Death Penalty Information Center’s teleconference: A national poll of Americans’ views on the death penalty. Teleconference will be held on Tuesday, November 16, 2010, at 10 AM Eastern Time. The teleconference will begin with short presentations by representatives of Lake Research Partners, the national firm that conducted the poll, and DPIC’s Executive Director. Following these…

Ohio Governor Ted Strickland granted clemency to Sidney Cornwell, reducing this sentence to life without parole. Cornwell faced execution on November 16 for a 1996 gang-related shooting in Youngstown. Attorneys for Cornwell argued that he grew up in an abusive environment and that he suffered from a genetic condition that contributed to his violent tendencies. The attorneys also said that Cornwell’s death sentence was disproportionate to sentences handed out for similar killings in Mahoning…

Recent DNA tests raise serious doubts about the conviction of a man executed in Texas in 2000. The tests revealed that a strand of hair found at the scene of a liquor-store shooting did not belong to Claude Jones, as was originally implied by the prosecution. Instead, the hair belonged to the victim. Jones was executed for the murder of the store’s owner. The strand of hair was the only piece of physical evidence that placed Jones at the scene of the crime, and this revelation raises the…