Publications & Testimony

Missouri’s Republican House Majority Leader Steven Tilley says Governor Jay Nixon should com­mute the death sen­tence of Dennis Skillicorn, who is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed on May 21. Citing rev­e­la­tions that anoth­er sus­pect com­mit­ted the mur­der while Skillicorn was unaware of the mur­der plan, Tilley said,​“Certainly, that would be enough rea­son­able doubt for me that I would be very con­cerned if this state exe­cut­ed that indi­vid­ual.” …

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The state of Tennessee has dropped all charges against Paul House, a death row inmate first con­vict­ed in 1986. House was accused of the rape and mur­der of Carolyn Muncey based large­ly on cir­cum­stan­tial evi­dence. DNA evi­dence used against him at tri­al was lat­er found to belong to Muncey’s hus­band. In House v. Bell, the U.S. Supreme Court con­sid­ered the new DNA tesing and ques­tions about blood stains on House’s clothes.

On March 8, Connecticut held a leg­isla­tive hear­ing about what should be done with the state’s death penal­ty. The Judiciary Committee has already approved a bill to abol­ish cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Connecticut has car­ried out only one exe­cu­tion since 1973, and that was with an inmate who waived his appeals and vol­un­teered for exe­cu­tion. The Chief State’s Attorney, Kevin T. Kane sub­mit­ted a pro­pos­al to reform the sys­tem, but it would cur­tail the appeals process…

The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund has released the lat­est Death Row U.S.A. report, cov­er­ing death penal­ty sta­tis­tics through January 1, 2009. The total num­ber of death row inmates decreased from 3,309 a year ear­li­er to 3,297. The states with the largest num­ber of death row inmates were California with 678, Florida with 402, and Texas with 358. The states (with 10 or more inmates) with the high­est per­cent of minori­ties on death row were…

A bill to repeal the death penal­ty and use the funds saved to inves­ti­gate unsolved mur­der cas­es in Colorado was defeat­ed in the state sen­ate by a vote of 18 – 17 on May 6. The House had ear­li­er approved the bill by a vote of 33 – 32. On May 4, the sen­ate had approved an amend­ment, drop­ping the repeal of the death penal­ty and fund­ing the cost of inves­ti­gat­ing cold cas­es through a $2.50 fine to con­vict­ed felons. However, the con­fer­ence committee restored…

Amnesty International has released a new report entitled, ​“Too much cru­el­ty, too lit­tle clemen­cy: Texas nears 200^th exe­cu­tion under cur­rent gov­er­nor.” It exam­ines many of the near­ly 200 exe­cu­tions that have occurred dur­ing Governor Rick Perry’s term in office, as well as a few cas­es where exe­cu­tions are immi­nent. The orga­ni­za­tion states that the Governor is not sole­ly respon­si­ble for the fate of those on death row, but notes that…

A judge in Texas has rec­om­mend­ed that the claim of an unfair tri­al brought by death row inmate Charles Hood should go for­ward because the tri­al judge and pros­e­cu­tor had a secret roman­tic rela­tion­ship that they hid from the defen­dant before, dur­ing, and after his tri­al. CBS News Legal Analyst Andrew Cohen report­ed on the sto­ry, writ­ing,​“Hood’s judge and pros­e­cu­tor lied, over and over again, to hide their affair. Any blame for the delay…

By the…

The North Carolina Supreme Court ruled 4 – 3 that physi­cians can­not be pun­ished by the State Medical Board for tak­ing part in exe­cu­tions. The Medical Board had adopt­ed a pol­i­cy in January 2007 that their physi­cian’s code of ethics would be vio­lat­ed by a doc­tor tak­ing part in an exe­cu­tion, sub­ject­ing prac­ti­tion­ers to hav­ing his or her med­ical license revoked. This pol­i­cy con­flict­ed with the state law that requires a physician’s pres­ence at all…