Publications & Testimony

Prosecutors decid­ed against pur­su­ing a death sen­tence for a ser­i­al killer in Terrebonne Parish in Louisiana. Roland Dominique, who was arrest­ed at a home­less shel­ter, pled guilty to the mur­der of eight young men, and he may have killed as many as 23 men. Terrebonne Parish District Attorney Joe Waitz, Jr. decid­ed against seek­ing the death penal­ty after con­sult­ing with mem­bers of the vic­tims’ familes. The fam­i­ly mem­bers reached a unan­i­mous agree­ment to accept a plan of back-to-back life…

Former U.S. Attorney Paul Charlton expressed relief that the Justice Department is no longer seek­ing to exe­cute a defen­dant in the case that was cause for his ter­mi­na­tion. Charlton told the Associated Press that he did not think the gov­ern­ment had suf­fi­cient evi­dence to pur­sue the death penal­ty in the pros­e­cu­tion of Jose Rios Rico. Charlton’s boss, for­mer Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, want­ed him to pur­sue it any­way and tes­ti­fied to a Senate pan­el that he…

The files on exe­cu­tions in America com­piled by not­ed his­to­ri­an M Watt Espy, Jr are to become part of the National Death Penalty Archive locat­ed at the State University of New York at Albany. The Espy col­lec­tion, enti­tled ​“Executions in America,” doc­u­ments more than 15,000 exe­cu­tions in the United states dat­ing back to 1608 and colo­nial Jamestown. Among the unique mate­ri­als are hand­writ­ten ledgers with an alpha­bet­i­cal list­ing of exe­cut­ed indi­vid­u­als by state and by date from the 1600’s through…

Murder Victims’ Families for Human Rights (MVFHR) and the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) are work­ing togeth­er to launch a nation­al project con­cerned with the inter­sec­tion of the cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem and peo­ple with severe men­tal ill­ness. The groups will host a press con­fer­ence in San Antonio, Texas on October 3^rd. Speakers will include the Director of MVFHR, the NAMI Policy and Legal Director, fam­i­ly mem­bers of vic­tims mur­dered by peo­ple with men­tal ill­ness, and family…

The Collin County court in Texas has dis­missed cap­i­tal mur­der charges against Michael Blair who had been on death row for the 1993 mur­der of Ashley Estell. After more than a decade of legal appeals and requests for DNA test­ing, the hair evi­dence that had been used to con­vict Blair was shown to be mis­tak­en. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals found that no rea­son­able jury would con­vict Blair based on the exist­ing evidence.The District Attorney’s office filed a motion to dismiss…

Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins announced that he will be reex­am­in­ing near­ly 40 death penal­ty con­vic­tions in his coun­ty. No exe­cu­tions will occur in the coun­ty until he has reviewed the cas­es in detail. Watkins said he will start with the old­est cas­es as they are most like­ly to be sched­uled first. ​“I’m not say­ing I’m putting a mora­to­ri­um on the death penal­ty,” said Watkins. ​“It’s say­ing that maybe we should with­draw those dates and look at those cas­es from a new per­spec­tive to…

According to the F.B.I.‘s lat­est crime report released on September 15, the South is the only region in the coun­try that expe­ri­enced a rise in its mur­der rate in 2007. The FBI report­ed that the mur­der rate in the coun­try declined to 5.6 mur­ders per 100,000 peo­ple in 2007 from 5.7 in 2006, and the rate declined in the Northeast, the Midwest, and the West. In the South, how­ev­er, the mur­der rate increased from 6.8 in 2006 to 7.0 in 2007, the high­est rate among the four regions. The…

UPDATE: Parole Board Denied Clemency on Sept. 16 and Jack Alderman was…

The U.S. Supreme Court will return to hear oral argu­ments in its new term on October 6. To date, the Court has grant­ed cer­tio­rari in (agreed to hear) three death penal­ty cas­es. Bell v. Kelly will be argued on November 12, 2008. This case orig­i­nat­ed in Virginia and con­cerns the scope of fed­er­al review when the state court has failed to devel­op an issue. Edward Bell claimed that his attor­ney failed to present impor­tant mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence at this sen­tence hear­ing, but this claim…