Publications & Testimony

The number of federal death sentences has increased in the past seven years, while the number of state death sentences has declined. The size of the federal death row has tripled since 2000, while the number of people on state death rows has dropped. There has also been a marked increase in the number of people on the federal death row from states that do not have their own death penalty laws. From 1994 to 2000, there were 17 federal death sentences. From 2001 to 2007, there were 36 federal…

A North Carolina prosecutor has announced he will seek the death penalty in a case where the victim spoke out against capital punishment and her family opposes it. Before her death, college student and University of North Carolina student body president Eve Carson told fellow students gathered for a death penalty discussion that she did not agree with the death penalty due to the flaws in its application. She noted, “It doesn’t work, in my opinion.” After Carson’s murder, her family told Orange…

Jim Trainum, a police officer of over 25 years, recently discussed how shocked he was to discover how he and other officers were able to obtain a confession to murder from an innocent woman. Trainum explained, “Reviewing the tapes years later, I saw that we had fallen into a classic trap. We ignored evidence that our suspect might not have been guilty, and during the interrogation we inadvertently fed her details of the crime that she repeated back to us in her confession.” Detective Trainum…

Two dozen exonerated ex-death row prisoners from across the country will hold a news conference on October 31 in Austin to call for the establishment of a statewide commission on wrongful convictions and a moratorium on executions in Texas. The 24 men spent a combined total of nearly 200 years on death row before being freed. They will be joined by State Rep. Elliot Naishtat and former Bexar County District Attorney Sam Millsap (pictured). Texas has executed 417 people since the reinstatement…

Civil rights litigator and death penalty expert Ronald J. Tabak recently published “The Private Bar’s Efforts to Secure Proper Representation for those Facing Execution” in the Justice System Journal. The article presents an in-depth review of the American Bar Association’s (ABA) role in ensuring effective counsel in capital cases. Tabak recounts the ABA’s efforts since the mid-1980’s to secure competent representation at every state of legal proceedings, stating that “someone without counsel…

The US Court of Appeals for the 11^th Circuit issued a stay for Georgia death row inmate Troy Davis on October 24. The federal appeals court’s three-judge panel ordered both sides to draft briefs to address wheter Davis can be executed if he can demonstrate his likely innocence. Davis’ case has garnered both international and national attention. Former President Jimmy Carter and the European Union were among those calling for a stay of execution. Davis was scheduled to be executed on October 27…

Elon University School of Law’s Professor Victor Streib has released a new edition of his book, Streib’s Death Penalty in a Nutshell. It covers both the substantive and the procedural law of the death penalty and begins with arguments for and against the death penalty and an explanation of its basic constitutional challenges and limitations. Professor Streib covers capital crimes and defenses, as well as trial level and post trial procedural issues. Other topics include race and gender bias…

The Tennessean called for a more just legal system as a state legislative study committee on the death penalty continues to meet. The committee began its work this year after a series of embarrassing mistakes in applying the death penalty in Tennessee. Executions currently are on hold due to a lethal injection challenge brought last year by a death row inmate. The editorial called the committee’s work a “sliver of hope for improvement” after “costly confusion and probable miscarriages of…