Publications & Testimony

William Neukom, the President of the American Bar Association, recent­ly wrote about the death penal­ty in con­junc­tion with a vis­it to Duke University Law School in North Carolina, where he addressed the grad­u­at­ing class. In an op-ed, Mr. Neukom not­ed that the ABA had close­ly stud­ied the death penal­ty sys­tems of eight states and found repeat­ed fail­ures to meet min­i­mum stan­dards advo­cat­ed by the ABA. He renewed the call of the ABA for a halt to executions until…

On May 12, the U.S. Supreme Court grant­ed cer­tio­rari in Bell v. Kelly, No. 07 – 1223, where the peti­tion­er chal­lenged a low­er court’s dis­missal of his claim of inef­fec­tive­ness of coun­sel. Edward Nathaniel Bell stat­ed that his tri­al lawyers pre­sent­ed no mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence on his behalf at his sen­tenc­ing hear­ing, despite the exis­tence of many sym­pa­thet­ic facts that might have led a jury to vote for a life sen­tence. The state court pre­sent­ed with this claim did not hold a hearing on…

In May 2008, the California Supreme Court threw out the death sen­tence of con­vict­ed mur­der­er Adam Miranda and ordered a new sen­tenc­ing tri­al, rul­ing that Los Angeles County pros­e­cu­tors failed to dis­close key infor­ma­tion that like­ly affect­ed the sen­tenc­ing of Miranda. A Los Angeles Times edi­to­r­i­al high­lights the arbi­trari­ness of this case, not­ing that many defen­dants with­out ded­i­cat­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tion might not have fared so well. This edi­to­r­i­al asks about the oth­er inmates on California’s death…

Recent exon­er­a­tions from death row, such as the release of Levon Jones in North Carolina on May 3, have been linked to the poor qual­i­ty of rep­re­sen­ta­tion some of these inmates received. This rais­es par­tic­u­lar con­cern as the nation resumed exe­cu­tions on May 6. William Lynd of Georgia was the first per­son exe­cut­ed since Sept. 25, 2007. But Georgia’s new pub­lic defend­er sys­tem has had its bud­get cut back and has been forced to elim­i­nate more than 40 posi­tions. Robin Maher of the American…

Georgia is plan­ning to excute William Earl Lynd at 7 PM on May 6. If the lethal injec­tion goes for­ward, this would be first exe­cu­tion in the U.S. since September 25, 2007. On that day, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a chal­lenge to the lethal injec­tion process in Baze v. Rees. On April 16, 2008, the Court upheld the process of lethal injec­tion as prac­ticed in Kentucky, sig­nalling a prob­a­ble end to the 7‑month mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions. However, the pos­si­ble resump­tion of executions comes…

Eighteen peo­ple have been exon­er­at­ed of seri­ous vio­lent crimes from a sin­gle Texas coun­ty through DNA-test­ing in recent years. James Woodward was the lat­est per­son to be freed from con­fine­ment from Dallas County. He spent 27 years in prison for the wrong­ful con­vic­tion of rap­ing and mur­der­ing his girl­friend in 1981. Statewide in Texas there have been 30 such exon­er­a­tions. As a par­tial response, state Senator Rodney Ellis has called for a sum­mit on inno­cence to take place…

May 5,…

The state of North Carolina dropped all charges against Levon Jones, and he was freed today (May 2) after spend­ing 13 years on death row. U.S. District Court Judge Terrence Boyle over­turned Jones’s con­vic­tion two years ago, but he was held in prison await­ing a pos­si­ble retri­al until pros­e­cu­tors announced that they were dis­miss­ing all charges. Judge Boyle crit­i­cized Jones’s defense attor­neys for ​“con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly defi­cient” per­for­mance, not­ing their fail­ure to research the…

According to a recent study by Prof. David Sloss of the St. Louis University School of Law, and oth­ers, only a small per­cent­age of eli­gi­ble mur­der cas­es in Missouri are pros­e­cut­ed as death penal­ty cas­es, and even few­er result in a death sen­tence. Only 2.5 per­cent of defen­dants pros­e­cut­ed for inten­tion­al homi­cide are sen­tenced to death. In anoth­er 2.5 per­cent of cas­es, juries reject the death penal­ty. Ninety-five per­cent of inten­tion­al homi­cide cas­es are nev­er pre­sent­ed to the jury as…