Publications & Testimony

Prof. John Blume of Cornell University Law School has com­piled the cas­es in which an inmate’s death sen­tence was reduced because of a find­ing of men­tal retar­da­tion. His research revealed 83 such rever­sals since 2002. In Atkins v. Virginia (2002), the U.S. Supreme Court held that it is uncon­sti­tu­tion­al to apply the death penal­ty to defen­dants with men­tal retar­da­tion. The Court did not, how­ev­er, estab­lish a def­i­n­i­tion for men­tal retar­da­tion or determine the…

U.S. District Court Judge Sam Sparks in Texas has ruled Scott Panetti men­tal­ly com­pe­tent enough to be exe­cut­ed. Panetti’s ear­li­er path to exe­cu­tion was blocked by the U.S. Supreme Court, which heard his appeal in 2007 (Panetti v. Quarterman). The Court held that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit had used too nar­row a stan­dard in decid­ing whether Panetti had an under­stand­ing of why he was to be exe­cut­ed. The Court also held that Texas had not given…

The high­ly acclaimed film At the Death House Door pre­mieres on the Independent Film Channel on May 29, 2008. This doc­u­men­tary pro­vides a unique per­spec­tive into the peo­ple who par­tic­i­pate in exe­cu­tions in Huntsville, Texas. Viewers expe­ri­ence what it means to work on death row through the eyes of Pastor Carroll Pickett, who served 15 years as the death house chap­lain and presided over 95 exe­cu­tions (includ­ing the world’s first lethal injec­tion). Following each…

On June 4, Georgia has sched­uled the exe­cu­tion of Curtis Osborne. (UPDATE: Osborne was exe­cut­ed on June 4.) Osborne’s own defense lawyer at tri­al was racial­ly biased against him and failed to do the most basic inves­ti­ga­tion that might have saved his clien­t’s life. The attor­ney repeat­ed­ly referred to Osborne with a racial epi­thet, say­ing,​“that little n​​​​r deserves the chair.” At the time of the mur­der that sent Osborne to death row, he was suffering…

Based on state­ments from the District Attorney’s office, it appears that Texas wrong­ly con­vict­ed Michael Blair and sen­tenced him to death in 1994 for the sex­u­al assault and mur­der of 7‑year-old Ashley Estell. The case led to the pas­sage of​“Ashley’s Laws” to increase pun­ish­ments for such offens­es. Collin County District Attorney John Roach announced that new DNA tests show no phys­i­cal evi­dence link­ing Blair to the crime. The only foren­sic evi­dence that point­ed to Blair for…

The Georgia Pardons and Parole Board com­mut­ed Samuel Crowe’s death sen­tence to life with­out parole just two and a half hours before his sched­uled exe­cu­tion on May 22, 2008. The five-mem­ber Board’s state­ment said,​“After care­ful and exhaus­tive con­sid­er­a­tion of the request, the board vot­ed to grant clemen­cy.” The Board had heard from sev­er­al peo­ple who knew Crowe, includ­ing pas­tors and a for­mer cor­rec­tions offi­cer, who said,​“I felt like if they released him that…

In a poten­tial death penal­ty case in Houston, Texas, a jury sen­tenced Juan Quintero to life with­out parole on May 20 for the mur­der of a police offi­cer. One juror, Tiffany Moore, described her expe­ri­ence as very emo­tion­al,​“I was torn up. I was crying.…I still feel we came to the right deci­sion,” she said.​“We could nev­er bring Rodney back. I feel very sad for the fam­i­ly, los­ing a loved one.” Moore added that the sen­tenc­ing phase was more dif­fi­cult for the jury than the…

Former mem­bers of the New Jersey Supreme Court recent­ly shared their insights on the death penal­ty at a sym­po­sium spon­sored by Seton Hall and Fordham law schools, and by the the New York City and New Jersey State Bar asso­ci­a­tions. Five for­mer mem­bers of the Court, includ­ing two chief jus­tices, reviewed the 25 years of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in New Jersey before 2007’s repeal of the death penal­ty. Their con­clu­sions echoed the opin­ion of Justice Barry Albin in…

A fed­er­al judge in Delaware extend­ed a stay on all exe­cu­tions in the state on May 15, 2008, pend­ing an evi­den­tiary hear­ing sched­uled for June. One exe­cu­tion in Delaware was stayed by the same judge, District Court Judge Sue L. Robinson (pic­tured), in May 2006, pend­ing a deter­mi­na­tion of the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the state’s use of lethal injec­tion. In 2007, the impact of the even­tu­al rul­ing in that case was extend­ed to all of the state’s death row inmates. The stay…

Earl Berry is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed on May 21 in Mississippi, despite evi­dence that he has men­tal retar­da­tion. Judicial review of this evi­dence has been denied because his for­mer lawyers failed to file the evi­dence in a time­ly fash­ion. This would be the sec­ond exe­cu­tion since the U.S. Supreme Court approved Kentucky’s method of lethal injec­tion on April 16. Last month, a psy­chol­o­gist con­clud­ed that Berry had an IQ of 75 or below and​“sig­nif­i­cant­ly…