Publications & Testimony

The lat­est ver­sion of Death Row U.S.A. has been released by the Capital Punishment Project of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. The report con­tains death row and exe­cu­tion data for all states and fed­er­al juris­dic­tions as of January 1, 2008. The report lists inmates by state, name, and race. The report also con­tains infor­ma­tion on each per­son exe­cut­ed since the death penal­ty was rein­stat­ed in 1976, and infor­ma­tion on U.S. Supreme Court deci­sions. The last ver­sion of DRUSA was…

On July 10, Carlton Akee Turner is sched­uled to be put to death in Texas for the mur­der of his adop­tive par­ents when he was 19 years old. But a major­i­ty of the vic­tims’ rel­a­tives are speak­ing out against the exe­cu­tion. Victim Tonya Carlton’s broth­er, Kelly Johnson, wrote in a peti­tion to the Board of Pardons and Paroles, ​“I do not wish to see my sister’s only child exe­cut­ed. I believe in my heart that my sis­ter would only have want­ed Akee to receive the help that he need­ed to restore his mind…

A for­mer California deputy dis­trict attor­ney recent­ly explained how he had changed his views on the death penal­ty after once argu­ing for it at tri­al. From that expe­ri­ence, he con­clud­ed he ​“won’t do it again.” As the pros­e­cu­tor in a heinous mur­der case, Darryl Stallworth found him­self feel­ing more hes­i­tant about the use of the death penal­ty as the tri­al pro­gressed. Stallworth stat­ed, ​“I was no longer cer­tain what would be accom­plished by exe­cut­ing [the defen­dant].” Although he argued for the…

Testimony of Richard C. Dieter, Executive Director, Death Penalty Information Center, before the Nevada Advisory Commission on the Administration of Justice regard­ing the costs of the death penal­ty and relat­ed issues (July 7, 2008; telephonic…

Gerald Kogan, for­mer Chief Justice of the Florida Supreme Court, who has also served as a pros­e­cu­tor, defense attor­ney, and tri­al judge, recent­ly expressed con­cerns about Florida’s death penal­ty sys­tem. ​“Florida’s sys­tem of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment is bro­ken,” he wrote in the St. Petersburg Times. ​“Florida’s jus­tice sys­tem fails on many fronts.” He point­ed out that ​“Florida has become the hold­er of a dubi­ous dis­tinc­tion: more indi­vid­u­als con­vict­ed of mur­der (22) have been exon­er­at­ed from our death…

Legal schol­ar Cass Sunstein and researcher Justin Wolfers recent­ly joined in an op-ed piece in the Washington Post respond­ing to the U.S. Supreme Court’s cita­tion of their work in Baze v. Rees, the deci­sion that approved lethal injec­tion and opened the way to recent exe­cu­tions. Justice Stevens had cit­ed Wolfer’s research as evi­dence of the lack of deter­rence of the death penal­ty while Justice Scalia cit­ed Sunstein’s writ­ings indi­cat­ing a ​“a sig­nif­i­cant body of recent evi­dence that capital…

A recent law review arti­cle argues that cap­i­tal defen­dants’ right to expert assis­tance would grow stronger through the revi­tal­iza­tion of the 1983 Supreme Court deci­sion in Ake v. Oklahoma. The author explains that recent court deci­sions and the revised American Bar Association Guidelines for the Appointment and Performance of Defense Council in Death Penalty Cases ​“offer the hope that the the­o­ret­i­cal enti­tle­ment of Ake will be ful­ly real­ized.” As a result, the arti­cle argues that one of two…

On June 30^th, the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice released a 107-page report on the state’s cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem, call­ing it ​“dys­func­tion­al” and a ​“bro­ken sys­tem.” The Commission, chaired by for­mer Attorney General John Van de Kamp, came to the con­clu­sion that California would save hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars if cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment was elim­i­nat­ed. The report states, ​“The fam­i­lies of mur­der vic­tims are cru­el­ly delud­ed into believ­ing that jus­tice will be…

According to a new study by the Associated Press, there has been a sharp drop in the use of the death penal­ty in Ohio as pros­e­cu­tors are tak­ing advan­tage of a new law allow­ing them to seek a sen­tence of life with­out parole with­out first pur­su­ing the death penal­ty. The sen­tence of life with­out parole used to be only an option for jurors weigh­ing an alter­na­tive to a death sen­tence. According to the AP, ​“Prosecutors around Ohio, cit­ing the abil­i­ty to pur­sue harsh punishment…