Publications & Testimony

An op-ed by Texas state Senator Rodney Ellis and law pro­fes­sor Craig Jackson argues that Gov. Rick Perry and the Texas Board of Pardons should fol­low the International Court of Justice’s order to stay the exe­cu­tions of Mexican cit­i­zens in Texas. They believe the World Court’s deci­sion was the​“right thing to do” and Gov. Perry​“would do well to con­sid­er how defi­ance of the World Court rul­ing will affect the safe­ty of Americans abroad who rely on the same treaty protections…

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court recent­ly ruled that the state can force two death row inmates to take anti-psy­­chot­ic med­ica­tion so they are men­tal­ly com­pe­tent enough to pro­ceed with their appeals and be exe­cut­ed. The two inmates were sen­tenced to death but were found incom­pe­tent to par­tic­i­pate in the appeals filed on their behalf. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that men­tal­ly incom­pe­tent inmates may not be exe­cut­ed. The Pennsylvania court over­turned lower court…

New research has called into ques­tion the reli­a­bil­i­ty of some use of DNA tests to defin­i­tive­ly iden­ti­fy sus­pects in crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tions. After recent evi­dence of chro­mo­so­mal​“match­es” based on DNA test­ing turned out to belong to unre­lat­ed indi­vid­u­als, some sci­en­tists won­der whether there are flaws in the assump­tions that under­lie the FBI’s sta­tis­ti­cal esti­mates of DNA accu­ra­cy. In 2001, Arizona state crime lab ana­lyst Kathryn Troyer was…

The Justice Project has just released two pol­i­cy reviews relat­ed to DNA test­ing and the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem. The first,​“Improving Access to Post-Conviction DNA Testing,” chron­i­cles the lessons to be learned from the case of Kirk Bloodsworth. Bloodsworth was sen­tenced to death in Maryland and spent almost nine years in prison for the rape and mur­der of nine-year-old Dawn Hamilton before DNA test­ing proved he did not com­mit the crime. The report contains the…

Oklahoma Governor Brad Henry grant­ed a 30-day stay of exe­cu­tion for Kevin Young who was sched­uled to die on July 22. The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board rec­om­mend­ed clemen­cy for Young a week ear­li­er after hear­ing tape record­ed state­ments from jurors stat­ing that they hadn’t want­ed to give Young the death sen­tence but didn’t receive clar­i­fi­ca­tion when they asked whether he would be eli­gi­ble for parole if he was sen­tenced to life with­out parole. One juror explained,…

A new study pub­lished in the American Journal of Political Science inves­ti­gates the con­nec­tion between death penal­ty deci­sions and the prac­tice of elect­ing judges.​“The analy­sis pre­sent­ed con­sid­ers pub­lic opinion’s influ­ence on the com­po­si­tion of courts … and its influ­ence on judge votes in cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment cas­es. In elec­tive state supreme courts, pub­lic sup­port for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment influ­ences the ide­o­log­i­cal com­po­si­tion of those courts and…

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Death penal­ty pros­e­cu­tions in Missouri illus­trate the arbi­trari­ness that is applied coun­ty by coun­ty across the coun­try in cap­i­tal cas­es. St. Louis Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce, whose juris­dic­tion cov­ers the city, has nev­er tak­en a cap­i­tal case to tri­al since her elec­tion in 2001. But Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch, whose juris­dic­tion is the sub­ur­ban coun­ty, has won death sen­tences against 10 peo­ple since 2000, despite the fact that the coun­ty has only…

Researchers Marvin Zalman, Brad Smith, and Angie Kiger of Wayne State University’s Criminal Justice Department recent­ly pub­lished a study in the Justice Quarterly on the fre­quen­cy of wrong­ful con­vic­tions. After a com­pre­hen­sive review of the lit­er­a­ture con­cern­ing inno­cence, they report­ed the results of their sur­vey of Michigan police offi­cers, pros­e­cu­tors, defense lawyers and judges regard­ing their​“esti­mates of the fre­quen­cy of wrongful conviction.”…

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…