Publications & Testimony

Over the past two years, Ohio has executed more inmates than any other state except Texas. Since resuming executions in 1999, Ohio has executed 38 people, more than any other state outside of the South in that time period. As in the South, race appears to play a significant role in who receives the death penalty. In the Ohio cases resulting in an execution, 75% of the victims in the underlying murder were white. Generally, in Ohio about 65% of murder victims are black (Ohio Office of Criminal…

In a recent address to lawyers and judges at a judicial conference, retiring U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens explained the evolution of his views on the constitutionality of the death penalty. Regarding his 2008 assertion that the death penalty should be abolished, Justice Stevens elaborated, “The risk of an incorrect decision has increased,” and that because of advances in DNA testing that have led to freeing some innocent convicts, “we’re more aware of the risk than we might have…

Sixteen death row inmates have filed a lawsuit against the state of Mississippi, claiming that their executions should be halted because their state-appointed attorneys were “untrained, inexperienced, and overwhelmed.” Under Mississippi law, the state must provide “competent and conscientious” counsel for death row inmates before execution dates can be set. The law suit, filed in Hinds County Chancery Court, claims that the attorneys appointed through the Office of Capital Post-Conviction…

On Friday, May 7, NPR’s Radio Diaries will feature a half-hour documentary entitled, “Willie McGee and the Traveling Electric Chair.” The documentary focuses on the life of Willie McGee who was executed in Mississippi during the Jim Crow era after being convicted by an all-white jury of raping a white woman. During that time in Mississippi, the state used a portable electric chair, which the state transported from county to county. According to NPR, it was not just the portable electric chair…

“Condemned” is a compilation of the correspondence between Irish author Sean O’ Riain and an inmate on death row in the United States, known as “Ray” in the book. Riain became involved in writing letters to a death row inmate through the Comunita di Sant’Egidio, an organization in Rome that partners death row inmates with penfriends around the world. “Ray” is on death row for killing a man – -a crime he committed at a young age, and now freely admits and deeply regrets. Among the many glimpses of…