Publications & Testimony

The Maryland Commission on Capital Punishment began hearing testimony from a wide variety of witnesses on issues related to the state’s death penalty system. After gathering information regarding matters such as possible racial, geographic and socioeconomic disparities, on costs, and on the risks of executing the innocent, the 23-member Commission will offer recommendations to the General Assembly to ensure that Maryland’s use of the death penalty is “free from bias and error” and achieves…

Jeffrey Wood is scheduled for execution on August 21 for a murder committed by another man during a botched robbery at a gas station. Wood did not fire the gun that killed the victim and was not inside the station when another man, Danny Reneau, committed the murder. At Reneau’s trial, the prosecution had argued that Reneau was the person chiefly responsible for the crime and that Wood’s role was secondary. The prosecution in Wood’s case changed their theory and argued that he was equally…

The Fordham Urban Law Journal has published a series of articles based on a symposium on lethal injection that was held at Fordham Law School in March 2008. The issue includes articles by Professor Deborah Denno of Fordham, a leading historian and expert on methods of execution, Judge Jeremy Fogel, a federal judge overseeing the challenge to lethal injection in California, Judge Fernando Gaitan, a federal judge who oversaw the challenge to Missouri’s lethal injection process, and articles by…

Georgia’s Hall County is encountering the high costs of seeking the death penalty as they prosecute their first capital case in nine years. The county expects the death penalty trial to cost at least four times as much as a regular murder trial. Capital trials are by far the most expensive criminal proceeding that takes place in local superior courts. Estimates put the cost for jurors and bailiffs alone at more than seven times the normal cost for a murder trial without seeking the death…

On April 16, 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Kentucky’s lethal injection process in Baze v. Rees, thereby opening the door to a resumption of executions which had been on hold since September 2007. Since then, there have been 18 executions: 100% have been in the South 33% have been in Texas All but one have been by lethal injection. Of the 18 defendants executed: 8 were white 8 were black 2 were Hispanic. Of the 25 victims in the underlying murders: 13 were white 9 were black 2 were…

In a 5 – 4 vote on August 5, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a stay of execution for Jose Medellin, a Mexican citizen, who was then executed in Texas that night. On August 7, Heliberto Chi, an Honduran citizen, was also executed in Texas. Medellin’s case had come before the Supreme Court on two previous occasions because the International Court of Justice had ruled that the U.S. had violated the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations by not informing him and other foreign nationals of their…

An inmate in Alabama came within hours of execution despite the fact that serious doubts arose about whether he had even committed the crime that put him on death row. Thomas Arthur had been scheduled to die in Alabama on July 31, but the Alabama Supreme Court voted 5 – 4 on July 30 to stay his execution after another inmate confessed to the murder for which Arthur had been sentenced to death. In a sworn statement, Bobby Ray Gilbert confessed to killing Troy Wicker Jr. more than 26 years ago.

In a 4 – 3 vote, the Arkansas Parole Board recommended that Frank Williams’ death sentence be commuted to life without parole. The Board had received petitions for clemency from 13 state, national, and international organizations and developmental disabilities experts which concluded that Mr. Williams suffers from mental retardation based on his sub-average adaptive functioning and the diagnosis of psychological experts. The requests for clemency emphasized the fact that executing a mentally…

Argument: April 16, 2008 Decision: June 25, 2008 Modified: Oct. 1, 2008 The U.S. Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional a Louisiana statute that allowed the death penalty for the rape of a child where the victim did not die. In Kennedy v. Louisiana, the Court held that all such laws, where the crime against an individual involved no murder were not in keeping with the national consensus restricting the death penalty to the worst offenses. As a result, the only two people sentenced to…

Arkansas’ leading advocacy organization for people with mental retardation, Arc Arkansas, delivered a letter to Governor Mike Beebe and the Arkansas Parole Board urging clemency for Frank Williams, Jr. because of his mental retardation. He is scheduled for execution on September 9 and the Arkansas Parole Board is holding a clemency hearing on his case on August 4. The letter notes that executing a mentally retarded person is unconstitutional based on both Arkansas’ 1993 statutory ban and the…