Publications & Testimony

A new require­ment that every death sen­tence be reviewed and approved by China’s high­est court has result­ed in a sharp decline in exe­cu­tions there. A spokesman for the Supreme People’s Court in China said that low­er courts are report­ing a 10% drop in exe­cu­tions dur­ing the first five months of 2007. Human rights experts esti­mate that China exe­cutes 10,000 — 15,000 peo­ple each year, more than the rest of the world com­bined, but offi­cials do not release spe­cif­ic num­bers to the pub­lic. In recent…

According to a new report and opin­ion poll issued today by the Death Penalty Information Center, the American pub­lic is los­ing con­fi­dence in the death penal­ty as doubts about inno­cence and the pur­pose of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment increase. The report, A Crisis of Confidence: Americans’ Doubts About the Death Penalty, is based on a recent nation­al opin­ion poll con­duct­ed by RT Strategies and com­mis­sioned by DPIC. ​“Public con­fi­dence in the death penal­ty has clear­ly erod­ed over the past 10 years,…

In a recent edi­to­r­i­al, the Los Angeles Times voiced con­cerns about a Louisiana Supreme Court deci­sion uphold­ing the death sen­tence of Patrick Kennedy for the rape of his 8‑year-old step­daugh­ter. The paper said the Louisiana court’s deci­sion to allow the death penal­ty in such cas­es could lead states to seek the death penal­ty for oth­er non-mur­der crimes, a devel­op­ment that would wors­en an already dys­func­tion­al death penal­ty sys­tem. The edi­to­r­i­al not­ed: The United States is virtually alone…

Although the Supreme Court struck down race-based strikes of poten­tial jurors more than two decades ago in Batson v. Kentucky, the deci­sion has fall­en short of its goal. For exam­ple, in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, a recent study has revealed that poten­tial black jurors are struck three times as often as white jurors in the parish. This does not include the jurors struck for being unable to fol­low death penal­ty law by the judge. A Louisiana Crisis Assistance Center review of 390 felony…

The League of Women Voters of Florida is urg­ing Governor Charlie Crist to con­tin­ue the mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions and to con­sid­er alter­na­tive sen­tences. In a let­ter from Florida League President Dianne Wheatley-Giliotti to Governor Crist, the orga­ni­za­tion not­ed that con­cerns about fair­ness, inno­cence, costs, and pub­lic safe­ty have led them to ques­tion the val­ue of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. In their call for a mora­to­ri­um, the League…

Just days after a fed­er­al judge in California ruled that exe­cu­tions in that state must remain on hold as the lethal injec­tion pro­ce­dures are care­ful­ly con­sid­ered, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8^th Circuit held that lethal injec­tion exe­cu­tions in Missouri may resume because their pro­ce­dures do not vio­late the 8^th Amendment’s ban on cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment. U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel, who is pre­sid­ing over the ongo­ing legal chal­lenges in California, said…

Just weeks before Texas is sched­uled to exe­cute Cathy Henderson (pic­tured) for the mur­der of a child that she was babysit­ting, the med­ical exam­in­er whose tes­ti­mo­ny helped send her to death row has said he no longer stands by his orig­i­nal opin­ion that the child’s death result­ed from an inten­tion­al act on Henderson’s part. In light of new sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence show­ing that Brandon Baugh’s death could have result­ed from an acci­den­tal fall, retired Travis County chief medical examiner…

In a guest col­umn pub­lished in the Jurist, for­mer FBI Director William S. Sessions under­scored the impor­tance of mak­ing DNA test­ing avail­able for those fac­ing exe­cu­tion. He also encour­aged states to thor­ough­ly review their cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tems and to make reforms to ensure greater reli­a­bil­i­ty. DNA test­ing, he not­ed, has revealed that police often do not have the right sus­pect in seri­ous crimes. In about 25% of the cas­es where DNA was avail­able and a suspect had…

The lat­est issue of Scientific American con­tains an arti­cle about the sci­ence of anes­the­si­ol­o­gy, not­ing that ​“the med­ical spe­cial­ty of anes­the­si­ol­o­gy has evolved into a sophis­ti­cat­ed art form.” The mag­a­zine reports that the sci­en­tif­ic under­stand­ing of how anes­thet­ic drugs actu­al­ly work and how to make them bet­ter has lagged behind most oth­er areas of drug devel­op­ment, a short­com­ing that has result­ed in safe­ty con­cerns. Episodes of aware­ness dur­ing oper­a­tions while under general anesthesia,…