Publications & Testimony

In Smith v. Spisak, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed for a sec­ond time to review ques­tions of jury instruc­tions pre­sent­ed dur­ing the penal­ty phase and inef­fec­tive assis­tance of coun­sel at the defen­dan­t’s tri­al. Frank Spisak was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death for the mur­der of three peo­ple at Cleveland State University in 1982. While the Ohio Supreme Court affirmed the con­vic­tions and sen­tence, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit granted…

Willie Pondexter is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed in Texas on March 3 despite a civ­il suit filed by his attor­neys alleg­ing inter­fer­ence by the state in the attor­neys’ inves­ti­ga­tion into Pondexter’s mod­el behav­ior and reha­bil­i­ta­tion dur­ing 14 years on death row. In Texas, the key fac­tor in deter­min­ing whether a defen­dant is sen­tenced to life or death is whether he rep­re­sents a future dan­ger to soci­ety. Pondexter’s attor­neys from the Texas Defender Service had…

The Los Angeles Times recent­ly edi­to­ri­al­ized about the futil­i­ty of keep­ing the death penal­ty in California. ​“Let’s end this bru­tal, anachro­nis­tic prac­tice,” of the death penal­ty, the paper wrote. ​“Inefficiency and cost­li­ness are obvi­ous­ly only a small part of what’s wrong with the death penal­ty.” The edi­to­r­i­al con­tin­ued, “[C]apital pun­ish­ment strikes dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly at dis­ad­van­taged groups, and capri­cious­ly at oth­ers,” adding, ​“We doubt its…

On March 2, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral argu­ments in District Attorney’s Office v. Osborne con­cern­ing a defen­dan­t’s right to post-con­vic­tion DNA test­ing. In this non-cap­i­tal rape case, Alaska has repeat­ed­ly refused William Osborne’s request for DNA test­ing of evi­dence from the crime scene despite the fact that it would be at no cost to the State, and the fact the evi­dence could demon­strate Osborne’s inno­cence of the 1993 rape and attempt­ed mur­der for which he was convicted.

Recent devel­op­ments in Montana and New Mexico may affect the out­come of leg­isla­tive efforts to abol­ish the death penal­ty. In Montana, the Senate vot­ed 27 – 23 to end the death penal­ty in favor of life in prison with­out parole. It is the sec­ond ses­sion in a row that such a pro­pos­al has cleared the Senate. New Mexico​’s House passed a bill replac­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment with life in prison with­out parole and the bill is pend­ing in a Senate com­mit­tee. Legislatures in…