Publications & Testimony

Journal of the American Medical Association COMMENTARY By Lee Black, JD, LLM and Robert M. Sade, MD Legal exe­cu­tion by lethal injec­tion has made nation­al head­lines dur­ing the past 2 years because pris­on­ers have argued that it pos­es an unnec­es­sary risk of pain as cur­rent­ly per­formed and there­fore con­sti­tutes uncon­sti­tu­tion­al cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment. The most wide­ly used method of lethal injec­tion, devel­oped by a physician,1 involves the intra­venous infu­sion of large dos­es of sodium…

In a recent edi­to­r­i­al, The New York Times praised New Jersey’s replace­ment of the death penal­ty with a sen­tence of life with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole. The Times wrote, ​“It took 31 years, but the moral bank­rupt­cy, social imbal­ance, legal imprac­ti­cal­i­ty and ulti­mate futil­i­ty of the death penal­ty has final­ly pen­e­trat­ed the con­sciences of law­mak­ers in one of the 37 states that arro­gates to itself the right to exe­cute human beings.” The Times not­ed the impor­tance of the inno­cence issue in the…

NEWS RELEASEGovernor Jon S. CorzineDecember 17,…

The Justice Project recent­ly released two pol­i­cy reviews that pro­vide sug­ges­tions for pre­vent­ing wrong­ful con­vic­tions in crim­i­nal tri­als. Using research and data from past exon­er­a­tions, the new reports, Expanded Discovery in Criminal Cases and Jailhouse Snitch Testimony, point to the places and sit­u­a­tions in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem where a wrong­ful con­vic­tion can be eas­i­ly pre­vent­ed. Expanded Discovery in Criminal Cases stress­es the impor­tance of full evi­den­tiary discovery in…

The Death Penalty Project, an inter­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tion that pro­vides free legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion for indi­vid­u­als fac­ing the death penal­ty in the Caribbean and Africa, recent­ly pub­lished A Guide to Sentencing in Capital Cases. The guide pro­vides judges, pros­e­cu­tors, and defense attor­neys with infor­ma­tion and sam­ple appeals to help them nav­i­gate the sen­tenc­ing phase in cas­es where a manda­to­ry death sen­tence for a spe­cif­ic crime was abol­ished, leav­ing the for­mer death row inmate to be…

by Michal LandoDecember 13, 2007Jerusalem…

Prosecutors in North Carolina on December 11 dropped all charges against Jonathon Hoffman, who had been con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death for the 1995 mur­der of a jew­el­ry store own­er. Hoffman won a new tri­al in 2004 because infor­ma­tion favor­able to Hoffman was with­held from the defense. During Hoffman’s first tri­al, the state’s key wit­ness, Johnell Porter, had received immu­ni­ty from fed­er­al charges for tes­ti­fy­ing against his cousin. The defense attor­neys, jury, and the judge did…

Gov. Ernie Fletcher of Kentucky com­mut­ed the death sen­tence of Jeffrey D. Leonard for the 1983 mur­der of a Louisville store clerk before leav­ing office. Governor Fletcher reduced Leonard’s death sen­tence to life with­out parole. He had been con­vict­ed under the name of James Earl Slaughter. The Governor not­ed in his com­mu­ta­tion that Leonard was not pro­vid­ed with ade­quate rep­re­sen­ta­tion and that Leonard’s attor­ney did not even know his clien­t’s real name dur­ing the tri­al. The…

After hours of debate and tes­ti­mo­ny, the New Jersey Senate today approved bill S‑171 which will replace the state’s death penal­ty with a sen­tence of life with­out parole. The mea­sure was approved by a vote of 21 – 16 and now moves to the State Assembly, where approval is also expect­ed in a vote on Thursday. The gov­er­nor has indi­cat­ed he will sign the bill into law, mak­ing New Jersey the first state to leg­isla­tive­ly abol­ish the death penal­ty in over 40 years. Around the coun­try, the death penalty…