Publications & Testimony

Dissenting from a U.S. Court of Appeals deci­sion deny­ing relief to Gary Cone, Judge Merritt sharply crit­i­cized the Tennessee Attorney General for ​“fal­si­fi­ca­tion” of the record, and he referred to the state’s judi­cial sys­tem as ​“bro­ken” and ​“inat­ten­tive.” Cone had been grant­ed relief on two oth­er occa­sions by the same Sixth Circuit, but those deci­sions were reversed by the U.S. Supreme Court. In the present case, Cone claimed that sig­nif­i­cant mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence had been with­held by the state…

In the third edi­tion of what some have called ​“the first true text­book on the death penal­ty,” author Robert Bohm, a cor­rec­tion­al offi­cer turned col­lege pro­fes­sor, engages the read­er with a full account of the argu­ments and issues sur­round­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. His book, ​“DeathQuest III: An Introduction to the Theory & Practice of Capital Punishment in the United States,” begins with the his­to­ry of the death penal­ty from colo­nial to mod­ern times, and then exam­ines the moral and…

A recent study con­duct­ed by the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) has revealed that Texas is almost last among states in spend­ing on men­tal health ser­vices and per­forms poor­ly in oth­er men­tal health areas. According to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas ranked 47^th in the nation in per-capi­ta spend­ing on men­tal health ser­vices, and received a grade of ​“D” for infor­ma­tion access and a grade of ​“C”…

June 17, 2007 The Daily PilotMany aca­d­e­mics in recent years have been argu­ing that their stud­ies prove the death penal­ty deters mur­der. The var­i­ous stud­ies show that between 3 and 18 lives could be saved by exe­cut­ing a con­vict­ed killer. Critics ques­tion the data, say­ing that the experts made mis­takes in their method­ol­o­gy. What do you think of this recent data? Has it affect­ed your posi­tion on the issue? Judaism has always believed in cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment based upon Biblical Law. A man must…

In his new book, ​“The Big Eddy Club: The Stocking Stranglings and Southern Justice,” author David Rose exam­ines issues of race and the death penal­ty. The book relates the sto­ry of Carlton Gary, who was con­vict­ed of cap­i­tal mur­der in 1986 and remains on Georgia’s death row for the rape and mur­der of sev­er­al elder­ly women in Columbus, Georgia. Rose, a con­tribut­ing edi­tor at Vanity Fair, links Gary’s con­vic­tion to a his­to­ry of bias in Columbus and the South. ​“The Big Eddy Club” details…

Ruling in a pre-tri­al mat­ter in New Mexico, Judge Timothy Garcia of Santa Fe County’s First Judicial District Court held the state’s death penal­ty law to be uncon­sti­tu­tion­al based on a study by the Capital Jury Project. The Project’s research in 14 states had found that jurors often do not fol­low the law in mak­ing their sen­tenc­ing deci­sion. In par­tic­u­lar, the judge found that the jurors’ propen­si­ty toward mak­ing their sen­tenc­ing deci­sion dur­ing the guilt-inno­cence phase of the…

The U.S. Supreme Court’s deci­sion in Uttecht v. Brown on June 4, 2007 appears to enhance the state’s abil­i­ty to remove poten­tial jurors with doubts about the death penal­ty. But by expand­ing the class of peo­ple who can­not serve on cap­i­tal juries, the deci­sion may ulti­mate­ly ren­der the death penal­ty invalid as juries fail to rep­re­sent the true diver­si­ty of the American pub­lic. In a 5 – 4 deci­sion over­turn­ing an opin­ion writ­ten by Judge Alex Kozinski of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the…

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals stayed Cathy Henderson​’s sched­uled exe­cu­tion of June 13 and has remand­ed her case back to the tri­al court for a more care­ful review of new sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence that casts doubt on the state’s claim that she inten­tion­al­ly killed Brandon Baugh, an infant in her care. The appeals court deci­sion was large­ly based on a recent affi­davit sub­mit­ted by for­mer Travis County med­ical exam­in­er Dr. Roberto Bayardo (pic­tured), whose expert tes­ti­mo­ny was crucial to…

By a vote of 79 – 14, the Tennessee House of Representatives passed bipar­ti­san leg­is­la­tion cre­at­ing a study com­mis­sion to exam­ine the state’s death penal­ty sys­tem. A sim­i­lar mea­sure unan­i­mous­ly passed the state’s Senate in May, just one month after the American Bar Association issued a report find­ing that the state was not in full com­pli­ance with most of the bench­marks estab­lished to guar­an­tee a fair death penal­ty sys­tem. The new com­mis­sion will con­sist of rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the…

Rwanda​’s par­lia­ment has vot­ed to abol­ish the death penal­ty and replace it with life with­out parole, a move that offi­cials hope will clear the way for sus­pects in the nation’s 1994 geno­cide to be extra­dit­ed back to Rwanda for tri­al. Many of the sus­pects are believed to be at large in Europe, North America, and West Africa, regions where many coun­tries refuse to extra­dite crim­i­nal sus­pects to nations that con­tin­ue to prac­tice cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment or tor­ture. Rwandan genocide…