Publications & Testimony

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…

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…

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…

Texas death row inmate Jose Briseno was issued a stay of exe­cu­tion by a Texas judge so his pen-pal from England could fly to the state to meet him before he was exe­cut­ed by lethal injec­tion. Briseno’s attor­ney, Richard Burr, said the stay ​“had to do with Jose’s extra­or­di­nary abil­i­ty to reach out to peo­ple all over the US and the world – as a pen-friend – to offer support and…

The Texas Tech Law Review​’s lat­est edi­tion is focused on inno­cence and the death penal­ty. Among the arti­cles includ­ed, are, ​“Presumed Guilty: A Death Row Exoneree Shares His Story of Supreme Injustice and Reflections on the Death Penalty,” by Juan Roberto Melendez; ​“Toward a New Paradigm of Criminal Justice: How the Innocence Movement Merges Crime Control and Due Process,” by Keith A. Findley; ​“The Role of the Innocence Argument in Contemporary Death Penalty Debates,” by…

The prison news mag­a­zine The Angolite fea­tures an in-depth piece on the use of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment around the world in its recent iss­sue. Citing a 2008 Amnesty International report, the arti­cle notes that China, Iran, Pakistan, Iraq, and the United States lead the world in exe­cu­tions. Japan, the only oth­er indus­tri­al­ized democ­ra­cy besides the U.S. that uses cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, aver­ages five exe­cu­tions a year but is known for inhu­mane death row con­di­tions. Author and inmate…

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit over­turned a Texas defen­dan­t’s con­vic­tion and death sen­tence because of racial bias by the pros­e­cu­tion in jury selec­tion. Jonathan Reed, the defen­dant, had been con­vict­ed in 1979 of mur­der dur­ing a tri­al at which all five of the eli­gi­ble African-American poten­tial jurors were removed by the pros­e­cu­tion. The Fifth Circuit, which has upheld many death sen­tences from the state with the most exe­cu­tions in the…