Publications & Testimony

A man orig­i­nal­ly sen­tenced to death for four mur­ders in Texas has been released on his own recog­ni­zance after new DNA evi­dence was dis­cov­ered. Robert Springsteen and co-defen­­dant Michael Scott were released by State District Judge Mike Lynch after pros­e­cu­tors said they were not pre­pared to go to tri­al as sched­uled, leav­ing Judge Lynch to fol­low through on his promise to the defen­dants that anoth­er delay would mean free­dom for the defen­dants. Lynch said he not only had…

According to a study by the Independent Weekly, North Carolina con­ser­v­a­tive­ly spent at least $36 mil­lion dol­lars by seek­ing the death penal­ty instead of life in prison with­out parole over the past 7 years, just on defense costs. The state’s Indigent Defense Services orga­ni­za­tion said the aver­age cost of a death penal­ty defense was $63,700, and the state sought the death penal­ty 733 times between 2001 and 2008. The aver­age cost of the 1,785…

If you would like to lis­ten to a brief but infor­ma­tive dis­cus­sion of key death penal­ty issues, try DPIC’s newest resource–Podcasts. The most recent episode of this edu­ca­tion­al series explores the issue of the Costs of the death penal­ty. You can also choose to lis­ten to pre­vi­ous episodes to learn more about the issues of Arbitrariness and Clemency. Podcasts may be down­loaded for lis­ten­ing lat­er on a digital…

Washington’s for­mer med­ical direc­tor for the Department of Corrections, Dr. Marc Stern, recent­ly resigned from his post because of an ethichal con­flict with his role in super­vis­ing those who car­ried out exe­cu­tions. For exam­ple, the pris­on’s med­ical direc­tor, a nurse, attend­ed at least 8 prac­tice ses­sions with the four-mem­ber lethal-injec­­tion team, includ­ing some held on the kitchen coun­ter­top at a team mem­ber’s home. As he left his…

A new book, Lethal Rejection: Stories on Crime and Punishment, edit­ed and writ­ten in part by American University crim­i­nol­o­gist Robert Johnson and stu­dent Sonia Tabriz, fea­tures an array of fic­tion and poet­ry on crime and pun­ish­ment writ­ten by pris­on­ers, aca­d­e­mics, and stu­dents of crim­i­nol­o­gy. The book includes a num­ber of sto­ries about cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Jocelyn Pollock, Professor of Criminal Justice at Texas State University, writes in the…

A prosecutor’s mis­con­duct relat­ed to a Kentucky cap­i­tal mur­der case led the state to accept a plea bar­gain with the defen­dant in which he now faces a sen­tence of 10 years with the pos­si­bil­i­ty of imme­di­ate parole. Officials say Assistant Commonweath Attorney Ruth Lerner com­pro­mised the death penal­ty pros­e­cu­tion against Cory Gibson by cut­ting a deal with a wit­ness against Gibson. Lerner had not dis­closed a deal made with the wit­ness in a separate…

In a 5 – 4 rul­ing on June 18, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed a low­er fed­er­al court rul­ing hold­ing that the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment guar­an­tees a con­vict­ed inmate the right to a DNA test on evi­dence that might prove his inno­cence. The defen­dant, William Osborne, had been con­vict­ed in 1994 of sex­u­al assault in Alaska and sen­tenced to 26 years in prison. Alaska is one of only 4 states in the coun­try that does not have…

Indiana is sen­tenc­ing few­er peo­ple to death and exe­cut­ing at its slow­est pace in 15 years. It has gone two years with­out an exe­cu­tion for the first time since the mid-1990’s. ​“We’re run­ning out of death row inmates,” said Clark County Prosecutor Steven Stewart, who main­tains a pro-death penal­ty Web site. Prosecutors attribute the decline to time and mon­ey issues, part of a nation­al trend that has prompt­ed sev­er­al states to move towards…

Renowned Alabama attor­ney Bryan Stevenson was award­ed the 2009 Gruber Justice Prize for his ded­i­cat­ed work rep­re­sent­ing death row inmates, indi­gent defen­dants and juve­niles. Stevenson said the $250,000 prize would be direct­ed to the Equal Justice Initiative, an orga­ni­za­tion Stevenson found­ed that is best known for rep­re­sent­ing death row inmates. The Gruber Foundation not­ed that Stevenson and his staff had been respon­si­ble for​“for…

Eighty-eight per­cent of the country’s top crim­i­nol­o­gists do not believe the death penal­ty acts as a deter­rent to homi­cide, accord­ing to a new study pub­lished on June 16 in the Northwestern University School of Law’s Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology. The study was authored by Professor Michael Radelet, Chair of the Department of Sociology at the University of Colorado-Boulder, and grad­u­ate stu­dent Traci Lacock. Their article, ​“Do Executions Lower Homicide…