Publications & Testimony

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…

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…