Publications & Testimony

Wrongful Convictions Prompt More Jurisdictions to Videotape Interrogations The wrong­ful con­vic­tion of Eddie Joe Lloyd, a men­tal­ly ill man who was exon­er­at­ed in 2002 after serv­ing 17 years in prison for a rape and mur­der he did not com­mit, has prompt­ed Detroit to join a grow­ing list of juris­dic­tions that now require video­taped inter­ro­ga­tions of suspects.

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 infor­ma­tion regard­ing this leg­is­la­tion, Click Here. Idaho Governor Signs Bill…

New Study Reveals Deficiencies in Eyewitness Identification Procedures; Legislative Review Set As Georgia law­mak­ers con­vene to review eye­wit­ness iden­ti­fi­ca­tion pro­ce­dures in the state, a new study by the Georgia Innocence Project has revealed that 83% of Georgia police agen­cies have no writ­ten rules on han­dling eyewitness identifications.

State Legislators Advance Bills to Ban Juvenile Death Penalty Just weeks after leg­is­la­tors in Wyoming and South Dakota passed leg­is­la­tion to ban the exe­cu­tion of juve­nile offend­ers, law­mak­ers in Florida are on a sim­i­lar course that may send a bill that elim­i­nates the death penal­ty for those under the age of 18 to Governor Jeb Bush for sig­na­ture into law.

Passed a bill in July 2002, 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 infor­ma­tion regard­ing this leg­is­la­tion, Click Here. On January 24, 2001, (SJR…

Connecticut Lags Behind in Death Penalty Reforms The Chair of Connecticut’s Judiciary Committee has called for enact­ment of death penal­ty reforms to pro­tect against wrong­ful con­vic­tions. Of the six reforms rec­om­mend­ed after a 13-month spe­cial com­mis­sion on Connecticut’s death penal­ty, only one has been enact­ed. Members of the commission noted,…

Colorado House Committee Advances Bill to Abolish Capital Punishment The House Judiciary Committee recent­ly vot­ed to abol­ish the state’s death penal­ty, replac­ing it with a sen­tence of life-with­­out-parole, and use the mon­ey cur­rent­ly spent on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment to help solve 1,200 cold-case homi­cides in the state. The 7 – 4 vote fol­lowed four hours of testimony from…

Court Rules California’s New Lethal Injection Procedures are Invalid Superior Court Judge Lynn O’Malley Taylor held that the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation failed to fol­low prop­er pro­ce­dure for insti­tut­ing new reg­u­la­tions when it issued new lethal injec­tion pro­to­cols in May. Under state law, an agency that adopts new reg­u­la­tions must first pub­lish the text,…

In April 2001, Governor Huckabee signed a law pro­vid­ing for Defense Counsel Standards…

The ban on exe­cut­ing the men­tal­ly retard­ed was signed into law ear­li­er this year, and Napolitano said she backed most of the oth­er rec­om­men­da­tions, say­ing,​“If the state wants to con­tin­ue to have the death penal­ty, they bet­ter fund some of these things.” Read the report. (Associated Press,…