Publications & Testimony

A recent four-part series in the Denver Post about evi­dence in crim­i­nal cas­es detailed how police depart­ments across the U.S. store and dis­pose of cru­cial bio­log­i­cal evi­dence. The Post exam­ined 10 states in which author­i­ties destroyed bio­log­i­cal evi­dence in near­ly 6,000 rape and mur­der cas­es dur­ing the past decade. The inves­ti­ga­tion also revealed that over the past 30 years, destruc­tion of DNA evi­dence in 28 states has under­mined efforts by at least 141…

A new com­pre­hen­sive study of 200 inno­cence cas­es, all involv­ing peo­ple who were exon­er­at­ed by DNA evi­dence, found that erro­neous iden­ti­fi­ca­tion by eye­wit­ness­es, faulty foren­sic evi­dence, inac­cu­rate infor­mant tes­ti­mo­ny, and false con­fes­sions were the key prob­lems that led to these seri­ous mis­takes. The research — which includ­ed 14 death penal­ty cas­es — also found that courts per­formed mis­er­ably in iden­ti­fy­ing cas­es of inno­cence, and that those…

In 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court decid­ed in Ring v. Arizona that the Sixth Amendment’s guar­an­tee of a jury tri­al includ­ed the deter­mi­na­tion of whether suf­fi­cient aggra­vat­ing fac­tors exist­ed to make a defen­dant eli­gi­ble for the death penal­ty. Now, five years lat­er, the man at the cen­ter of this case — Timothy Ring — has been re-sen­­tenced to life with­out parole. Ring’s case is among 27 Arizona death penal­ty cas­es affect­ed by the Supreme Court’s ruling and…

Uneven Justice: State Rates of Incarceration by Race and Ethnicity is a new report by The Sentencing Project that exam­ines the racial and eth­nic dynam­ics of incar­cer­a­tion in the U.S. with tables by state and by race. The report notes that African Americans are incar­cer­at­ed at near­ly 6 times the rate of whites and Hispanics are incar­cer­at­ed at near­ly dou­ble the rate of whites. One in nine (11.7%) African American males between the ages of 25 and 29 is currently…

Donna Moonda (pic­tured) is fac­ing the fed­er­al death penal­ty in Ohio for hir­ing a man to kill her hus­band. The per­son who actu­al­ly shot and killed the vic­tim, Damian Bradford, received a sen­tence of only 17.5 years in exchange for his tes­ti­mo­ny against Moonda. Moonda and Bradford were con­vict­ed in sep­a­rate tri­als of orches­trat­ing and car­ry­ing out the plot to kill Dr. Gulam Moonda in an alledged effort to share his estate. The two defen­dants met in a drug…

UPDATE: After less than one hour of delib­er­a­tion, the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles grant­ed Troy Anthony Davis a 90-day stay of exe­cu­tion. The stay means Davis’ exe­cu­tion will be on hold while the board weighs the evi­dence pre­sent­ed as part of his request for clemen­cy. (Associated Press, July…

On July 11, South Dakota car­ried out its first exe­cu­tion in 60 years, mark­ing only the 15^th time the state has car­ried out a death sen­tence since 1877. The state exe­cut­ed 25-year-old Elijah Page after he dropped all appeals and vol­un­teered to die by lethal injec­tion. Page was only 18 at the time of his crime and had a long his­to­ry of being abused. During his tri­al, the pre­sid­ing judge not­ed,​“Most par­ents treat­ed their pets bet­ter than your parents treated…

A new book by Charles D. Flores details his per­son­al expe­ri­ence as an inmate on Texas’ death row. The book, Warrior Within: Inside Report on Texas Death Row, pro­vides a first-hand account of Flores’ death penal­ty tri­al and his expe­ri­ences await­ing exe­cu­tion. It explores his quest to learn more about the law as he fights to prove his inno­cence and win his free­dom. In the book, Flores writes,​“I start­ed to com­pre­hend what it meant to be on death row. I was beginning to…

Bexar County District Attorney Susan Reed recent­ly issued a report find­ing that Ruben Cantu (pic­tured) was guilty of the crime for which Texas exe­cut­ed him in 1993. However, crit­ics have not­ed that Reed was for­mer­ly a judge who han­dled Cantu’s appeal and set his exe­cu­tion date, rais­ing a con­flict of inter­est in con­duc­ing an inves­ti­ga­tion of his guilt. Moreover, many who are famil­iar with the case doubt Reed’s con­clu­sions and say the report’s find­ings do not add up.

A new report from the Charlotte School of Law on men­tal ill­ness and the death penal­ty reveals that obsta­cles entrenched with­in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem impede efforts to iden­ti­fy those with severe men­tal ill­ness and treat them fair­ly. The report,​“Mental Illness and the Death Penalty in North Carolina: A Diagnostic Approach,” is based on a 2006 sym­po­sium host­ed by the law school. It exam­ines sci­en­tif­ic stud­ies of men­tal ill­ness and pro­vides an overview of laws…