Publications & Testimony

Administrative Judge Fred G. Morrison Jr. has ruled that North Carolina prison offi­cials failed to live up to their promise that a doc­tor would mon­i­tor Willie Brown’s vital signs dur­ing his 2006 exe­cu­tion. Morrison, in his rul­ing, stat­ed that the prison offi­cials’ assur­ances that a doc­tor would par­tic­i­pate in the exe­cu­tion had ​“per­suad­ed the judge to let them exe­cute Willie Brown.” He went on to note, ​“The doc­tor did not observe the inmate nor did he mon­i­tor vital signs.” Morrison’s ruling…

Former Georgia Congressman Bob Barr, a well-known con­ser­v­a­tive voice and a death penal­ty sup­port­er, recent­ly ques­tioned the fair­ness and accu­ra­cy of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in an opin­ion piece pub­lished by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Barr not­ed that a recent University of Virginia study of wrong­ful con­vic­tion cas­es has raised seri­ous ques­tions about the reli­a­bil­i­ty of eye­wit­ness iden­ti­fi­ca­tion. He also applaud­ed the Georgia Supreme Court’s recent deci­sion to grant a hear­ing to death row…

Less than a month after the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles tem­porar­i­ly halt­ed the July 17 exe­cu­tion of Troy Davis (pic­tured) based on con­cerns about his pos­si­ble inno­cence, the Georgia Supreme Court has agreed to con­sid­er Davis’s appeal. By a vote of 4 to 3, the Court agreed to hear oral argu­ments in the case and con­sid­er whether eye­wit­ness recan­ta­tions and oth­er evi­dence dis­cov­ered since Davis’s 1991 con­vic­tion and death sen­tence are suf­fi­cient grounds for a new tri­al. Davis was…

A June 2007 Gallup Poll revealed that, dur­ing the past decade, there has been a sig­nif­i­cant drop in the per­cent­age of whites and blacks who sup­port cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Among black respon­dents, oppo­si­tion to the death penal­ty has grown from 37% in the mid-1990s to a major­i­ty of 56% today. Responses giv­en by white respon­dents have also shift­ed dur­ing the past decade. In the mid-1990s, 80% of white respon­dents said that they favored the death penal­ty, but today that per­cent­age has dropped…

When weigh­ing whether to seek the death penal­ty, Tulsa County First Assistant District Attorney Doug Drummond says that he tries to deter­mine how future juries will assess the evi­dence, as well as how a death penal­ty case will impact vic­tims’ fam­i­ly mem­bers. He observes, ​“Life with­out parole with­out appeals might be a bet­ter sit­u­a­tion for a lot of vic­tims’ fam­i­lies. There are some pos­i­tive things about that.… A lot of peo­ple, at first blush when a loved one is killed,…

A new Ohio State University study has found that blacks con­vict­ed of killing whites are not only more like­ly than non-whites to receive a death sen­tence, but also more like­ly to be exe­cut­ed. Blacks on death row for killing non-whites are less like­ly to be exe­cut­ed than oth­ers on death row. ​“Examining who sur­vives on death row is impor­tant because less than 10% of those giv­en the death sen­tence ever get exe­cut­ed,” said David Jacobs (pic­tured), co-author of the study and pro­fes­sor of…

Argued: April 18, 2007Decided: June 28,…

On August 30, Texas has sched­uled the exe­cu­tion of Kenneth Foster Jr. (pic­tured), despite the fact that all par­ties agree that Foster did not per­son­al­ly kill any­one. Foster was sen­tenced to death under the Texas Law of Parties that per­mits a per­son involved in a crime to be held account­able for the actions com­mit­ted by some­one else. In this case, Texas main­tains that Foster deserves the death penal­ty because he ​“should have antic­i­pat­ed” that a pas­sen­ger in his vehi­cle would exit the car with…

Billy Hill spent sev­en years as a dis­trict attor­ney in Shelby, Coosa, and Clay coun­ties in Alabama, and has recon­sid­ered his stance on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Mr. Hill says that he would wel­come a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions in Alabama while a study com­mis­sion exam­ines the state’s death penal­ty to eval­u­ate whether it is ​“a wise and humane use of our resources.” Wrongful con­vic­tions, the arbi­trary nature of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, poor rep­re­sen­ta­tion, and the long-term…

“Dead Innocent: The Death Penalty Abolitionist Search for a Wrongful Execution” by Professor Jeffrey L. Kirchmeier was recent­ly pub­lished in the Tulsa Law Review. The arti­cle exam­ines the poten­tial impact that the con­firmed exe­cu­tion of an inno­cent per­son would have on the U.S. death penal­ty debate. The author states that iden­ti­fy­ing those who have been wrong­ly con­vict­ed and lat­er freed — as well as indi­vid­u­als who may have been inno­cent and exe­cut­ed — pro­vides clear rea­son for law­mak­ers and…