Publications & Testimony

SANTA FE — Governor Bill Richardson today signed House Bill 285, Repeal of the Death Penalty. The Governor’s remarks fol­low:Today marks the end of a long, per­son­al jour­ney for me and the issue of the death penal­ty.Throughout my adult life, I have been a firm believ­er in the death penal­ty as a just pun­ish­ment — in very rare instances, and only for the most heinouscrimes. I still believe that.But six years ago, when I took office as Governor of the State of New Mexico, I started to…

Many states are con­sid­er­ing bills to abol­ish, reform, or expand the death penal­ty dur­ing cur­rent leg­isla­tive ses­sions. Some recent devel­op­ments include: New Mexico​’s bill to abol­ish the death penal­ty passed the House and Senate and is await­ing Gov. Richardson’s deci­sion and sig­na­ture, like­ly to come on March 18. In Colorado, a bill to abol­ish the death penal­ty and use the resources to pur­sue cold cas­es passed the House Judiciary…

Retired Washington State Supreme Court Justice Robert F. Utter recent­ly wrote an opin­ion piece argu­ing that the con­tin­ued use of the death penal­ty fails to serve jus­tice, pub­lic safe­ty or the pub­lic purse — and should be aban­doned. Justice Utter resigned from the high court after 23 years in 1995 because of his con­cerns about the death penal­ty. Justice Utter wrote recent­ly in the Seattle Times,​“My orig­i­nal rea­sons for res­ig­na­tion still apply. I then…

The New Mexico Senate vot­ed on March 13 to repeal the death penal­ty and replace it with a sen­tence of life with­out parole. The vote was 24 – 18. The House of Representatives had pre­vi­ous­ly vot­ed in favor of repeal. The bill will now go to New Mexico’s Governor Bill Richardson for his sig­na­ture. He has not announced whether he will sign the bill, but has indi­cat­ed a new open­ness to the repeal effort. Many vic­tims’ fam­i­lies mem­bers in New Mexico had…

South Carolina and California recent­ly fur­ther cuts in their judi­cial sys­tem in the wake of the eco­nom­ic cri­sis. California, the nation’s largest state judi­cia­ry, faces short­ened court hours, fur­loughed employ­ees, loss of judge­ships, and less mon­ey for state-fund­ed lawyers.​“Courts may be open few­er hours. The irony is that in eco­nom­ic down­turns the courts get more child sup­port dis­putes, fos­ter care fil­ings, and…

Several legal author­i­ties and pub­lic offi­cials are call­ing on Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear to sus­pend the death penal­ty pend­ing res­o­lu­tion of the state’s bud­get cri­sis. Kentucky’s pub­lic defend­er sys­tem will exhaust its cur­rent bud­get by May 21 with two months remain­ing in the fis­cal year, forc­ing it to shut down.​“The bud­get short­fall cre­ates a like­li­hood that coun­sel will be unavail­able or unable to prop­er­ly pro­ceed, thereby…

On March 9, the U.S. Supreme Court declined review in Thompson v. McNeil, but three Justices issued strong­ly word­ed state­ments about the impor­tance of the legal issue raised. William Thompson has been on death row in Florida for 32 years. He claimed the exces­sive time he has spent on death row amount­ed to cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment under the Eighth Amendment. Justice John Paul Stevens, in an opin­ion respecting the…

Citing the costs of seek­ing the death penal­ty, Louisiana pros­e­cu­tors are​“cut­ting way back,” accord­ing to State Attorney General Buddy Caldwell. A for­mer dis­trict attor­ney, Caldwell com­pared try­ing a cap­i­tal case to​“play­ing on a $100-a-roll table instead of a nick­el or dime table.” He explained that he could try a sec­ond-degree mur­der case for $15,000 to $20,000 instead of $250,000 to put a death-penal­­ty defen­dant on tri­al. Caldwell said the cost of…

In a recent opin­ion poll con­duct­ed by Elon University in North Carolina, less than half of those polled believe that the the death penal­ty is the​“most appro­pri­ate pun­ish­ment for first degree mur­der.” When the same ques­tion was asked in 2005, 61% chose the death penal­ty as the appro­pri­ate sen­tence. In 2009, that num­ber had dropped to 48%, the same per­cent­age record­ed in the University’s 2007 poll.​“I would imag­ine the dif­fer­ence in opin­ion on our…

Senator Carolyn McGinn of Kansas (pic­tured) recent­ly pub­lished an op-ed call­ing for an end to the death penal­ty because it is too cost­ly and does not ben­e­fit the peo­ple. Sen. McGinn, a Republican from Sedgwick, is the spon­sor of a bill that would replace the death penal­ty with a sen­tence of life with­out parole. She explained that in light of the state’s bud­get deficit, Kansas is look­ing at ways to reduce gov­ern­ment spend­ing.​“One policy…