Publications & Testimony

The U.S. Supreme Court issued a stay of exe­cu­tion for Georgia inmate Troy Davis on September 23 only two hours before his sched­uled exe­cu­tion. Evidence of his inno­cence has gar­nered nation­al and glob­al atten­tion, with pleas for clemen­cy com­ing from for­mer President Jimmy Carter, Desmond Tutu, and Pope Benedict XVI. Seven of the nine non-police wit­ness­es who tes­ti­fied against Davis at his orig­i­nal tri­al have recant­ed their tes­ti­mo­ny, including two…

Murder Victims’ Families for Human Rights (MVFHR) and the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) are work­ing togeth­er to launch a nation­al project con­cerned with the inter­sec­tion of the cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem and peo­ple with severe men­tal ill­ness. The groups will host a press con­fer­ence in San Antonio, Texas on October 3^rd. Speakers will include the Director of MVFHR, the NAMI Policy and Legal Director, fam­i­ly mem­bers of vic­tims mur­dered by peo­ple with mental…

The Collin County court in Texas has dis­missed cap­i­tal mur­der charges against Michael Blair who had been on death row for the 1993 mur­der of Ashley Estell. After more than a decade of legal appeals and requests for DNA test­ing, the hair evi­dence that had been used to con­vict Blair was shown to be mis­tak­en. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals found that no rea­son­able jury would con­vict Blair based on the exist­ing evi­dence.The District Attorney’s office filed…

Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins announced that he will be reex­am­in­ing near­ly 40 death penal­ty con­vic­tions in his coun­ty. No exe­cu­tions will occur in the coun­ty until he has reviewed the cas­es in detail. Watkins said he will start with the old­est cas­es as they are most like­ly to be sched­uled first.​“I’m not say­ing I’m putting a mora­to­ri­um on the death penal­ty,” said Watkins.​“It’s say­ing that maybe we should with­draw those dates and look at those cases…

According to the F.B.I.‘s lat­est crime report released on September 15, the South is the only region in the coun­try that expe­ri­enced a rise in its mur­der rate in 2007. The FBI report­ed that the mur­der rate in the coun­try declined to 5.6 mur­ders per 100,000 peo­ple in 2007 from 5.7 in 2006, and the rate declined in the Northeast, the Midwest, and the West. In the South, how­ev­er, the mur­der rate increased from 6.8 in 2006 to 7.0 in 2007, the high­est rate among the…

UPDATE: Parole Board Denied Clemency on Sept. 16 and Jack Alderman was…

The U.S. Supreme Court will return to hear oral argu­ments in its new term on October 6. To date, the Court has grant­ed cer­tio­rari in (agreed to hear) three death penal­ty cas­es. Bell v. Kelly will be argued on November 12, 2008. This case orig­i­nat­ed in Virginia and con­cerns the scope of fed­er­al review when the state court has failed to devel­op an issue. Edward Bell claimed that his attor­ney failed to present impor­tant mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence at this sentence…

Troy Davis has been sched­uled for exe­cu­tion on September 23 in Georgia, despite seri­ous doubts about his guilt. The state Parole Board has sched­uled a clemen­cy hear­ing on September 12 to review evi­dence relat­ed to the fact that sev­en of the nine eye-wit­­ness­es that tes­ti­fied against Davis have recant­ed their state­ments. Davis’ lawyers say they have evi­dence exon­er­at­ing him and impli­cat­ing anoth­er per­son as the killer. The Parole Board…

A new study of the death penal­ty in Arkansas showed racial pat­terns in sen­tenc­ing. University of Iowa law pro­fes­sor David Baldus’ study exam­ined 124 mur­der cas­es filed in one dis­trict from 1990 to 2005. Even after adjust­ing for fac­tors such as the defendant’s crim­i­nal his­to­ry and cir­cum­stances of the crime, black peo­ple who killed white peo­ple were more like­ly than oth­ers to be charged with cap­i­tal mur­der and be sen­tenced to death.​“It sug­gests to us that there’s…

A recent Florida case indi­cates that the deci­sion about who is the next per­son to be exe­cut­ed is more depen­dent on a few indi­vid­u­als in the gov­er­nor’s office than on an order­ly process. Richard Henyard is sched­uled for exe­cu­tion this month although 198 oth­er Florida death row inmates were sen­tenced to death before him. One such inmate, Gary Alvord, was sen­tenced to death two months before Henyard was born and has been on death row longer than any other inmate…