Publications & Testimony

By an 8 – 4 vote on Dec. 3, the New Jersey Senate Budget Committee vot­ed to advance a bill to replace the death penal­ty with a sen­tence of life in prison with­out parole. The bill would make New Jersey the first state to leg­isla­tive­ly abol­ish the death penal­ty since the U.S. Supreme Court rein­stat­ed the death penal­ty in 1976. Senator Raymond Lesniak, the bil­l’s spon­sor, cit­ed a recent case of wrong­ful con­vic­tion in New Jersey when explain­ing his sup­port for abolishing the…

New Hampshire, Wyoming House Pass Bills to Ban Juvenile Death Penalty Less than a month after the U.S. Supreme Court announced that it will recon­sid­er the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the death penal­ty for juve­nile offend­ers, two state leg­isla­tive bod­ies have passed mea­sures to ban the prac­tice. The New Hampshire Senate passed its bill to ban the exe­cu­tion of those who were under the age of…

B. Orser,​“Lifting the Fog Around Anesthesia,” Scientific American, June 2007Thomas, Evan and Brant, Martha​“Injection of Reflection,” Newsweek, November 10, 2007Weinstein, Harry and Dolan, Maura​“The Chaos Behind California Executions” Los Angeles Times (October 2, 2006)Guidry, Orin​“Message From the President: Observations Regarding Lethal Injection” American Society of Anesthesiologists (June…

DNA Exonerations Lead to Key Policy Changes Throughout the U.S. In the wake of more than 200 exon­er­a­tions based on DNA evi­dence, includ­ing some wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed death row pris­on­ers, juris­dic­tions through­out the U.S. are enact­ing key pol­i­cy reforms that add safe­guards to pro­tect against wrong­ful con­vic­tions and pro­vide inmates with bet­ter access to…

Author of Wisconsin Death Penalty Referendum Says Law Has No Chance of Passing Sen. Al Lasee (R‑DePere) of Wisconsin was the author of leg­is­la­tion that placed a non-bind­ing ref­er­en­dum on the death penal­ty on the state’s bal­lot in Tuesday’s elec­tion. Although 56% of the vot­ers approved the death penal­ty pro­pos­al, which required that DNA evi­dence confirm the…

The Washington Supreme Court has unan­i­mous­ly adopt­ed high­er stan­dards for death penal­ty attor­neys after a 2001 Seattle Post-Intelligencer news series revealed that 20% of the defense attor­neys who han­dled cap­i­tal cas­es in the state had been, or were lat­er, dis­barred, sus­pend­ed or arrest­ed. The reforms, enact­ed by the Court under Chief Justice Gerry Alexander, require Washington…

2007: Virginia leg­is­la­ture passed 5 death-penal­­ty expan­sion bills, which were vetoed by Gov. Tim Kaine. The leg­is­la­ture over­rode his vetoes for bills mak­ing mur­der of a wit­ness or a judge a cap­i­tal offense.Virginia Legislators And Victims Speak Against Death Penalty Two Virginia law­mak­ers who have had a fam­i­ly mem­ber mur­dered recent­ly spoke in…

2007: passed a bill mak­ing mur­der of a child under 14 a death-eli­gi­ble offense.Passed a bill in March 2003, exempt­ing the men­tal­ly retard­ed from the death penal­ty in which retar­da­tion, described as​“sig­nif­i­cant­ly sub­av­er­age gen­er­al intel­lec­tu­al func­tion­ing,” will be deter­mined before the tri­al. For more…

Victims’ Advocates, Prosecutors Caution Against Expansion of Texas Death Penalty Victims’ advo­cates and pros­e­cu­tors are urg­ing Texas leg­is­la­tors to exclude the death penal­ty from new leg­is­la­tion designed to tough­en penal­ties for repeat child moles­ters. Those opposed to the mea­sure fear that threat­en­ing death sen­tences for sex offend­ers could lead to fewer…

Tennessee Legislature Overwhelmingly Approves Death Penalty Study By a vote of 79 – 14, the Tennessee House of Representatives passed bipar­ti­san leg­is­la­tion cre­at­ing a study com­mis­sion to exam­ine the state’s death penal­ty sys­tem. A sim­i­lar mea­sure unan­i­mous­ly passed the state’s Senate in May, just one month…