Publications & Testimony

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…

Maryland’s Commission on Capital Punishment con­tin­ued with its fourth pub­lic hear­ing on September 5 in Annapolis. Experts tes­ti­fied about the addi­tion­al costs of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment com­pared to life-sen­­tence cas­es, the risk of arbi­trari­ness in death sen­tenc­ing, the valid­i­ty of recent deter­rence stud­ies, and the nation­al trends away from the use of the death penal­ty in the U.S. There was also dis­cus­sion about the num­ber of cur­rent cas­es that do not have any…

UPDATE: CHARLES HOOD’S EXECUTION HAS BEEN STAYED BY THE TEXAS COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS. A Texas state judge has ordered a hear­ing into the accu­sa­tion of an affair between the judge and the pros­e­cu­tor in Charles Hood’s death penal­ty case. With a week to go before Hood’s exe­cu­tion date, the Texas Attorney General also called for a review of the fair­ness of the tri­al. The Attorney General, Greg Abbott, request­ed that the dis­trict court​“thor­ough­ly review the defendant’s…

Testimony of Richard C. Dieter, Executive Director, Death Penalty Information Center, before the Maryland Commission on Capital Punishment regard­ing the costs of the death penal­ty and relat­ed issues (Sept.

A state judge in Arkansas has thrown fur­ther doubt on whether the upcom­ing exe­cu­tion of Frank Williams will be car­ried out on September 9 because the state did not fol­low prop­er pro­ce­dures in adopt­ing its lethal injec­tion pro­to­col. Pulaski County Circuit Judge Timothy Fox barred the Arkansas Department of Correction from using the pro­to­col in its exe­cu­tion of Frank Williams, Jr. because the new exe­cu­tion pro­ce­dures should have been sub­ject to public…

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…