Publications & Testimony

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…

DPIC has two new resources for com­par­ing the use of the death penal­ty in the var­i­ous states. The first is a chart list­ing the states in order of their total death sen­tences as a frac­tion of their pop­u­la­tion. The sec­ond mea­sures the total exe­cu­tions in each state as com­pared to the total num­ber of death sen­tences. Even though Texas leads the coun­try with the most exe­cu­tions since the rein­state­ment of the death penal­ty in 1976, it is…

On April 28 by a vote of 7 – 2, the United States Supreme Court over­turned a low­er court rul­ing and grant­ed a new hear­ing to Tennessee death row inmate Gary Cone because the state had with­held evi­dence from the defense. During his tri­al in 1984, Cone, a Vietnam vet­er­an, pre­sent­ed an insan­i­ty defense, argu­ing that psy­chosis induced by his drug use negat­ed his guilt. While the pros­e­cu­tion denied any evi­dence of Cone’s drug use and referred to his defense as…

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An edi­to­r­i­al The Daily Astorian, con­trasts the state’s use of funds for the death penal­ty to the state’s reduc­tion in fund­ing for edu­ca­tion.​“The glar­ing con­trast to our unques­tion­ing spend­ing on the death penal­ty — which Judge Lipscomb called​‘this large­ly futile attempt’ — is our dis­in­vest­ment in edu­ca­tion,” the paper not­ed.​“Investment in edu­ca­tion is about the future, and it is about hope. Investment in pris­ons and espe­cial­ly in the death…

Although Texas leads the coun­try by far with the most exe­cu­tions (436) since the rein­state­ment of the death penal­ty in 1976, it is sec­ond to Oklahoma in terms of exe­cu­tions as a frac­tion of the state’s pop­u­la­tion. The oth­er lead­ing exe­cu­tion states on a per capi­ta basis are Delaware, Virginia, Missouri, and Arkansas. The full rank­ing of exe­cu­tions per capi­ta by state may be found here. In 2009, there have been 22…

The Angolite, an award-win­n­ing mag­a­zine pro­duced by the inmates at Angola Prison in Louisiana, recent­ly pub­lished an exten­sive review of the devel­op­ments in the death penal­ty in 2008. The arti­cle by Lane Nelson addressed nation­wide trends, Supreme Court deci­sions, the issues of cost, the risks of exe­cut­ing inno­cent peo­ple, and the prob­lem of inad­e­quate rep­re­sen­ta­tion. The arti­cle con­clud­ed, “[N]ational debates, leg­isla­tive stud­ies, court rulings…