Publications & Testimony

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch recent­ly uncov­ered hos­pi­tal files indi­cat­ing that Dr. Alan R. Doerhoff, a Missouri physi­cian who assist­ed with the state’s exe­cu­tions and who devel­oped the state’s lethal injec­tion pro­to­col, gave mis­lead­ing answers dur­ing a 1999 mal­prac­tice suit about hav­ing his hos­pi­tal priv­i­leges revoked. In 1998, Doerhoff’s med­ical priv­i­leges were revoked from the Lake of the Ozarks General Hospital. Doerhoff was also denied priv­i­leges at St. Mary’s Health Center in Jefferson…

In an op-ed in the Fort-Worth Star-Telegram, police chief James Abbott stat­ed that the death penal­ty is bro­ken beyond repair and that the extra mon­ey spent pur­su­ing exe­cu­tions could be bet­ter spent on crime pre­ven­tion and the needs of vic­tims. Abbott is the Police Chief of West Orange, New Jersey, and he served on the New Jersey Death Penalty Study Commission. He was a long­time sup­port­er of the death penal­ty but even­tu­al­ly con­clud­ed that abo­li­tion was ​“just plain com­mon sense.” Chief Abbott…

Daryl Atkins, the defen­dant in the 2002 Supreme Court case (Atkins v. Virginia) that banned the exe­cu­tion of the men­tal­ly retard­ed, had his death sen­tence reduced to life with­out parole after a Virginia judge heard that evi­dence had been with­held from his tri­al attor­neys. Sentenced to death for the 1996 rob­bery and mur­der of Eric Nesbitt, Atkins received much atten­tion because of his men­tal lim­i­ta­tions and the ques­tion of whether it was con­sti­tu­tion­al to exe­cute those with men­tal retardation.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has ear­marked $136 mil­lion in addi­tion­al funds to build a new death row at San Quentin State Prison. In 2003, the California State Legislature had autho­rized $220 mil­lion for the same project, but the plans were put aside when cost esti­mates increased. The cur­rent esti­mate is $356 mil­lion to com­plete the con­struc­tion of the 768 new cells need­ed to reduce San Quentin’s sig­nif­i­cant over­crowd­ing. California already has the largest death row in…

“Under Pain of Death,” a new exhi­bi­tion at the Austrian Cultural Forum in New York City, explores the death penal­ty through var­i­ous forms of art, focus­ing par­tic­u­lar­ly on the human emo­tions involved. Beginning January 21, 2008, the exhi­bi­tion offers art instal­la­tions, film screen­ings, and lec­tures on a vari­ety of aspects of the death penal­ty. The Austrian Cultural Forum New York is locat­ed at: 11 E. 52^nd Street New York, NY 10022. (Press release, Austrian Cultural Forum, Jan. 2008;…

The California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice exam­ined the state’s death penal­ty on January 10 in an effort to iden­ti­fy incon­sis­ten­cies in its appli­ca­tion and reforms for improv­ing the sys­tem. California has the largest death row in the coun­try and the back­log of cas­es has pre­sent­ed sig­nif­i­cant prob­lems in ensur­ing time­ly appeals and lim­it­ing costs. Legal experts sug­gest­ed that the state needs to nar­row its def­i­n­i­tion of what con­sti­tutes a cap­i­tal crime. The state now…

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch recent­ly revealed that a Missouri man who was entrust­ed with state and fed­er­al exe­cu­tions had a crim­i­nal past. The man, a licensed nurse who was called to Indiana in 2001 to assist in the fed­er­al exe­cu­tion of Timothy McVeigh, first need­ed per­mis­sion from his pro­ba­tion offi­cer before leav­ing the state. In 1998, the Missouri exe­cu­tion­er was charged with felony aggra­vat­ed stalk­ing and first-degree tam­per­ing with prop­er­ty of a man who was hav­ing a rela­tion­ship with the…

The Nevada Supreme Court recent­ly issued new stan­dards for indi­gent defense coun­sel, includ­ing spe­cial pro­vi­sions for cap­i­tal cas­es that address all facets of death penal­ty pro­ceed­ings, from the selec­tion of the pub­lic defend­ers to post-con­vic­tion appeals. Key stan­dards regard­ing death penal­ty cas­es from the 72-page document…

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed on Jan. 4 to review the case of a man in Louisiana who was sen­tenced to death for a crime in which the vic­tim, a child, did not die. Of the approx­i­mate­ly 3,350 peo­ple on death row in the U.S., only two inmates received the death penal­ty for a non-homi­cide crime. Patrick Kennedy was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in 2004 for the rape of his 8‑year-old step­daugh­ter. He is chal­leng­ing his sen­tence as a vio­la­tion of the Eighth Amendment based…