Publications & Testimony
Items: 4351 — 4360
Feb 02, 2009
NEW VOICES: Judge Ronald Reagan Challenges Nebraska’s Death Penalty
Before his retirement from the court, Judge Ronald Reagan had sentenced a defendant to death and kept his views on the death penalty to himself. However, as Nebraska is considering a bill to abolish capital punishment, he spoke in favor of its repeal. “I’m a citizen here. I’d just as soon not have a death penalty,” Judge Reagan testified. “It just seems to me that people are recognizing that the death penalty is not an appropriate…
Read More
Feb 01, 2009
The Road to Justice and Peace by New Jersey State Senator Raymond Lesniak
New Jersey Senator Raymond Lesniak delivered the following speech at the Memorial de Caen International Human Rights Competition in Caen, France on Sunday, February 1,2009. The competition included lawyers from Washington, D.C., France, Belgium, Guinea, Senegal, and Switzerland with speech topics ranging from governmental to military abuses of human…
Read MoreJan 30, 2009
BOOKS: Life and Death Matters: Seeking the Truth About Capital Punishment
Life and Death Matters: Seeking the Truth About Capital Punishment is a new book that documents author Robert Baldwin’s personal journey in confronting racism and the death penalty in the Deep South. Baldwin shares his evolution in a conversational, first-person style with a declared faith perspective. Written for people of all beliefs and backgrounds, he focuses on the myths and misconceptions about prisons and the death penalty discovered through his…
Read More
Jan 29, 2009
Victims’ Families Ask State to End Death Penalty and Solve Cold Cases Instead
A bill is being introduced in Colorado to end the state’s death penalty and to use the resultant savings to investigate the state’s more than 1,300 unsolved crimes. More than 500 residents who have lost friends and family to unsolved murders are pushing for the bill, which is expected to be introduced by House Majority Leader Paul Weissmann. The proponents estimate that 3 in 10 killers in the state walk free, and catching more killers would be a more effective deterrent than…
Read More
Jan 28, 2009
Five Innocent People Exonerated in Nebraska; Defendants Were Threatened with Death Penalty
Five people in Nebraska were recently pardoned for a 1985 murder after new DNA evidence excluded their participation in the crime. The group was also known as the “Beatrice Six.” The sixth man, the only one who had insisted on a jury trial, was exonerated in October 2008 when prosecutors declined to seek a new…
Read More
Jan 27, 2009
Federal Appeals Court Grants Stay One Day Before Texas Execution Based on Evidence of Innocence
Texas death row inmate Larry Swearingen was unanimously granted a stay one day before his scheduled execution by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit on January 26. “We think this is an extraordinary case of actual innocence,” said Swearingen’s attorney James Rytting. “We’re hopeful that the federal courts will give the evidence a fair review.” Judge Jacques Wiener, who concurred in the Circuit Court’s opinion and stay, underlined the potential…
Read MoreJan 26, 2009
LAW REVIEWS: Convicting the Innocent
A new article in the Annual Review of Law and Social Science entitled “Convicting the Innocent” by Prof. Samuel Gross of the Universiry of Michigan Law School explores the rate of false convictions among death-sentenced inmates and examines the demographical and procedural predictors of such errors. Prof. Gross noted that earlier research showed the exoneration rate to be 2.3% for inmates who had been on death row at least 15 years and a similar rate for…
Read MoreJan 23, 2009
EDITORIALS: “Room for Doubt” about Upcoming Texas Excution
The Houston Chronicle is calling on Texas Governor Rick Perry to delay the execution of Larry Swearingen, which is scheduled for January 27. The Chronicle notes that the forensic scientist who testified about the time of death of the victim at Swearingen’s trial now believes the death occurred later, a time at which Swearingen was in police custody on another matter. Five other physicians and forensic experts concurred that the murder…
Read MoreJan 22, 2009
BOOKS: The Future of America’s Death Penalty
The Future of America’s Death Penalty, edited by Charles S. Lanier, William J. Bowers, James R. Acker, is a new book comprised of original chapters authored by nationally distinguished scholars. It is an ambitious effort to identify the most critical issues confronting the future of capital punishment in the United States and the steps that must be taken to gather and analyze the information that will be necessary for informed policy judgments. Contributors…
Read More
Jan 21, 2009
RESOURCES: Tennessee Law Review to Host Colloquium on Past, Present, & Future of Death Penalty
The Tennessee Law Review is hosting a colloquium entitled, “The Past, Present, and Future of the Death Penalty.” The event will take place February 6 – 7 at the University of Tennessee College of Law in Knoxville and will feature nationally known experts in this field, including David Baldus, Hugo Adam Bedau, Stephen Bright, Deborah Denno, Lyn Entzeroth, the Honorable Gilbert S. Merritt, and Penny White. Judge Merritt will deliver the keynote address on “Why So Much…
Read More