Publications & Testimony

California pros­e­cu­tors and defense attor­neys recent­ly agreed that Calvin Coleman, Jr., a man sen­tenced to death for mur­der in 1980, is men­tal­ly retard­ed and there­fore exempt from cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. After the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2002 deci­sion that declared exe­cu­tion of men­tal­ly retard­ed indi­vid­u­als uncon­sti­tu­tion­al (Atkins v. Virginia), California mod­i­fied its laws in 2005 to con­form to the rul­ing. Coleman is the first per­son about whom…

Executions resumed in the U.S. on May 6 fol­low­ing the Supreme Court’s deci­sion on lethal injec­tions on April 16. There have been 20 exe­cu­tions in 4 months, with 4 months of the year remain­ing. Pertinent sta­tis­tics fol­low:Geography100% in the South 40% in TexasRace of those exe­cut­edWhite 40%Black 45%Hispanic 15%Race of vic­tims in under­ly­ing mur­derWhite 57%Black 32%Hispanic 7%Asian 4%Method of exe­cu­tion19 by lethal injection1 by…

Ronald Carlson want­ed vengeance when his sis­ter was mur­dered in 1983 in Texas. But when he wit­nessed the exe­cu­tion in 1998 of the per­son who com­mit­ted the mur­der he changed his mind. In a recent op-ed in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Carlson said he had no opin­ion on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment before his sister’s death and remem­bers feel­ing hatred and​“would have killed those respon­si­ble with my own hands if giv­en the opportunity.”…

Joseph D. Tydings is a for­mer U.S. Senator from Maryland who has both pros­e­cut­ed and defend­ed death penal­ty cas­es. In a recent op-ed in the Baltimore Sun he wrote of his grow­ing con­cerns about cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment gen­er­al­ly, and about Maryland’s death penal­ty in par­tic­u­lar. His expe­ri­ence with the death penal­ty led him to the con­clu­sion that​“deep and irrefutable flaws are built into our present sys­tem of capital…

Jeff Wood’s exe­cu­tion was stayed with only hours remain­ing by U.S. District Court Judge Orlando Garcia of San Antonio. The judge chas­tised the Texas courts for their refusal last week to hire men­tal health experts to deter­mine whether Wood (pic­tured) was insane or appoint a lawyer to rep­re­sent him for a com­pe­ten­cy hear­ing. The state courts had ruled that Wood had to show he was insane before they would appoint a lawyer and a psy­chol­o­gist to help prove he was insane. Judge…

The defense attor­neys for death row inmate Charles Hood in Texas have filed a civ­il law­suit that would require retired Judge Verla Sue Holland and for­mer dis­trict attor­ney Tom O’Connell, Jr. to tes­ti­fy under oath whether they were hav­ing an inti­mate affair while both were par­tic­i­pat­ing in the cap­i­tal tri­al of Mr. Hood. The under­ly­ing claim is​“that Judge Holland or Tom O’Connell deprived Charles Hood of his con­sti­tu­tion­al rights by not revealing this…

A com­pelling nar­ra­tive of the legal and polit­i­cal fight to end the death penal­ty in France has just been released in an English trans­la­tion. Abolition: One Man’s Battle Against the Death Penalty is authored by Robert Badinter, prob­a­bly the sin­gle per­son most respon­si­ble for abol­ish­ing the death penal­ty in France. He begins his sto­ry in 1972 when one of his clients was guil­lotined in a case he felt was unjust. Upon ded­i­cat­ing his career to abol­ish­ing the death…

A new radio pro­gram, Execution Watch, is pro­vid­ing live cov­er­age and com­men­tary on days that Texas exe­cutes a death row inmate. Each show will air live start­ing at 6 pm Central Daylight Time at http://​www​.kpft​.org or http://​exe​cu​tion​watch​.org with a wide vari­ety of spe­cial guests and host Ray Hill. The pro­gram­ming is avail­able through the Internet. On its upcom­ing broad­cast, the show will cov­er issues relat­ed to the case of Jeffrey Wood, who is…

The Texas Forensic Science Commission will review the case of Cameron Todd Willingham (pic­tured) as its first case in its inves­ti­ga­tion of foren­sic mis­con­duct alle­ga­tions. Willingham was exe­cut­ed in 2004 in Texas for three deaths that occurred in 1991 from a fire in his home. The State Fire Marshal’s office had orig­i­nal­ly ruled that the blaze was an arson start­ed by an accel­er­ant. But the Innocence Project of Cardozo Law School in New York submitted…

The Maryland Commission on Capital Punishment began hear­ing tes­ti­mo­ny from a wide vari­ety of wit­ness­es on issues relat­ed to the state’s death penal­ty sys­tem. After gath­er­ing infor­ma­tion regard­ing mat­ters such as pos­si­ble racial, geo­graph­ic and socioe­co­nom­ic dis­par­i­ties, on costs, and on the risks of exe­cut­ing the inno­cent, the 23-mem­ber Commission will offer rec­om­men­da­tions to the General Assembly to ensure that Maryland’s use of the death penal­ty is​“free…