Publications & Testimony

The Innocence Commission, a new book by Jon B. Gould, describes how the advent of DNA test­ing and oth­er foren­sic advances in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem have led to seri­ous efforts to under­stand how so many wrong­ful con­vic­tions have hap­pened. In par­tic­u­lar, The Innocence Commission details the first years of the Innocence Commission for Virginia (ICVA), which was the first in the coun­try to con­duct sys­temic research into all wrong­ful con­vic­tions in the state. Gould, the…

Federal District Court Judge Jack B. Weinstein said recent­ly that seek­ing the death penal­ty against Humberto Pepin Taveras in New York is not worth the effort of pros­e­cu­tors or tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey.​“Based on the his­to­ry of cas­es tried in met­ro­pol­i­tan New York, the chance of Pepin receiv­ing the death penal­ty is vir­tu­al­ly nil,” Weinstein said. The case against Taveras, who con­fessed to mur­der­ing two drug traf­fick­ers in the 1990s while already serv­ing more than 12 years…

During his 15-year tenure on the court, Orange County Superior Court Judge Donald McCartin sen­tenced nine men to death. Now retired, Judge McCartin no longer believes in the death penal­ty.​“It’s a waste of time and tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey,” Judge McCartin said.​“It cost 10 times more to kill these guys than to keep them alive in prison. It’s absurd. And imag­ine the poor vic­tims’ fam­i­lies hav­ing to go through this again and again.” All but one of the nine men Judge McCartin sentenced to…

Connecticut Superior Court Judge Stanley T. Fuger ruled on February 27 that a suit alleg­ing racial and geo­graph­ic bias in the state’s death penal­ty should not be dis­missed. Judge Fuger is allow­ing the claim from sev­en death row inmates to con­tin­ue because the state’s con­sti­tu­tion gives defen­dants greater legal rights than the U.S. Constitution. The U.S. Supreme Court had reject­ed a sim­i­lar claim about Georgia’s death penal­ty in 1987 based on federal constitutional…

February…

“The Two Lives of Napoleon Beazley” is a new play by John Fleming that explores the true sto­ry of a 17-year-old African-American defen­dant who was sen­tenced to death for a car­jack­ing and mur­der in Texas. The vic­tim was the father of a fed­er­al judge. Using a vari­ety of fac­tu­al resources, includ­ing court tran­scripts and media accounts, the play exam­ines race and the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem before the Supreme Court ruled in 2005 that the death penal­ty for juveniles…

Two recent arti­cles in the Dallas Morning News detail the lives of those affect­ed by the wrong­ful impris­on­ment of Christopher Ochoa and Richard Danziger in Texas. For some, their faith in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem has been shat­tered. Twelve years after being sen­tenced to life in prison for a 1988 rape and mur­der, Ochoa and Danziger were exon­er­at­ed by DNA evi­dence. At the time of his arrest, Ochoa, after 15 hours of inter­ro­ga­tion, gave…

At a hear­ing of the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice held in Los Angeles, the moth­er of a mur­der vic­tim tes­ti­fied about why she believed the death penal­ty does not serve vic­tims’ needs. Aba Gayle’s daugh­ter, Catherine Blount, was a teenag­er when she was mur­dered in 1980 by Douglas Mickey. At first, Gayle told the Commission,​“The dis­trict attor­ney assured me that the exe­cu­tion of the man respon­si­ble for Catherine’s murder would…

Author Gilbert King, in his forth­com­ing book The Execution of Willie Francis, details the sto­ry of a young African-American man who endured the elec­tric chair twice before being exe­cut­ed for the mur­der of a white man in Louisiana. In 1946, an all-white jury con­vict­ed Francis, who was 17, and sen­tenced him to death. The first attempt to exe­cute him by elec­tro­cu­tion did not work, and Francis was returned to his death row cell where he remained for almost another year…

The Georgia Senate Appropriations Committee cut the state pub­lic defend­er bud­get to $513,000, less than 15% of what Gov. Sonny Perdue had rec­om­mend­ed to cov­er costs until the end of June. The gov­er­nor had orig­i­nal­ly sought $3.6 mil­lion for the Public Defender Standards Council, which is now con­cerned that with­out nec­es­sary funds, the Georgia court sys­tem will come to a stand­still, includ­ing their defense in cap­i­tal cas­es. House Majority Leader Jerry Keen said that…