Publications & Testimony

On March 4, the Maryland Senate reached a com­pro­mise on a death penal­ty repeal bill by amend­ing the bill so as to restrict cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tions. The pro­posed revi­sion to the state’s death penal­ty statute would pre­clude mur­der cas­es where the only evi­dence is eye­wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny and, in turn, require DNA evi­dence, video­taped evi­dence, or a vol­un­tary video­taped con­fes­sion. Sen. Jamie Raskin, a Montgomery County Democrat and pro­po­nent of death…

Former President Jimmy Carter wrote New Mexico’s Governor Bill Richardson to encour­age him to sup­port a bill repeal­ing the death penal­ty and replac­ing it with life in prison with­out parole.​“We encour­age your sup­port for this com­pre­hen­sive and vision­ary approach,” Carter wrote. In addi­tion to point­ing out how the extra mon­ey spent on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment could be bet­ter used else­where, Carter wrote, ​“As you know, the United States is one of the…

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…

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…

In a recent mil­i­tary death penal­ty case, the pros­e­cu­tors reject­ed a plea agree­ment that would have result­ed in a sen­tence of life in prison instead of the death penal­ty. The defen­dant, Sergeant Alberto Martinez, was then found not guilty on December 4, 2008, of mur­der­ing two fel­low sol­diers and walked free. Two years before the tri­al, Sgt. Martinez signed an offer to plead guilty to the mur­der charges and to describe​“the essen­tial facts and cir­cum­stances of the…

A Tennessee leg­isla­tive study com­mit­tee has end­ed its 16-month analy­sis of the state’s cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment process and has made rec­om­men­da­tions for achiev­ing a more fair and accu­rate sys­tem: . Require defense attor­neys in cap­i­tal cas­es to be high­ly qual­i­fied; . Mandate that defense attor­neys have uni­form access to evi­dence against their clients; . Require police offi­cers to record all inter­ro­ga­tions relat­ed to a homicide…

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…

A new book, No Winners Here Tonight: Race, Politics, and Geography in One of the Country’s Busiest Death Penalty States, by Ohio jour­nal­ist Andrew Welsh-Huggins, explores the his­to­ry of Ohio’s death penal­ty and rais­es ques­tions of fair­ness by exam­in­ing the state’s expe­ri­ence with cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Citing his­tor­i­cal exam­ples, the author argues that the death penal­ty has been car­ried out in an arbi­trary fash­ion from its ear­li­est days and has fallen…

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…

The Texas Commission on Judicial Conduct filed sev­en charges of mis­con­duct against Chief Justice Sharon Keller (pic­tured) of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) stem­ming from her actions in a death penal­ty appeal in 2007. Judge Keller is charged with not fol­low­ing court pro­ce­dure and improp­er­ly clos­ing the court to the appeal of Michael Richard short­ly before he was to be exe­cut­ed. Among oth­er charges, the Commission…