Publications & Testimony

In 1996, Illinois Governor Jim Edgar commuted the death sentence of Guin Garcia to life without parole, even though Garcia herself had stopped fighting for her life. Garcia would have been the first woman executed in the U.S. in twelve years. She had been convicted of killing the man who had physically abused her, but she had dropped her appeals because she said she was done “begging for her life.” Chicago Sun-Times reporter Carol Marin followed Garcia’s case after the commutation and recently…

Virginia Governor Timothy Kaine commuted the death sentence of Percy Walton (pictured) to life in prison without parole. Kaine cancelled the execution, scheduled for 9pm on June 10, because “one cannot reasonably conclude that Walton is fully aware of the punishment he is about to suffer and why he is to suffer it”. The Governor found “that Walton’s clemency petition presented significant evidence that Walton had schizophrenia, that such a mental illness can cause serious deterioration of…

Mexico has returned to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in seeking a stay of execution for Mexican-born inmates in the U.S. Mexico requested the U.N.’s highest court, commonly referred to as the World Court, to intervene because the United States has failed to comply with an earlier ICJ judgment ordering a review of the trials of the Mexican citizens. The World Court ruled in 2004 that the U.S. violated the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations because it had not provided the…

A new Texas Criminal Justice Integrity Unit has been formed by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to address concerns in the justice system and to work with inmates who may have been wrongfully convicted. The state’s highest court for criminal matters will study issues such as eyewitness identification, crime lab reliability, police interrogations, and standards for preserving evidence. Since 2001, 33 men have been exonerated in Texas, including one man from death row. Texas leads the country…

A recent law review article explores the quality of defense representation in capital cases in Tennessee. Authors William Redick, Jr., Bradley Maclean, and M. Shane Truett conducted an in depth study of Tennessee death penalty cases in their article, “Pretend Justice — Defense Representation in Tennessee Death Penalty Cases” in the University of Memphis Law Review. The article argues that Tennessee fails to provide effective defense representation in death penalty cases, citing ineffective…

Richard Taylor, a death row inmate in Tennessee suffering from severe mental illness, was resentenced to life without the possibility of parole after a plea bargain with the state. Taylor was convicted and sentenced to death for the killing of a prison guard in 1981 after the prison had stopped giving him his anti-psychotic medication. Deputy District Attorney Derek Smith said, “Our office decided that it would be in the best interest of the taxpayers to spend the hundreds of thousands of…

Terry Lyn Short is scheduled to be executed on June 17 in Oklahoma. He was convicted of causing a fire that killed Ken Yamamoto in 1995. A key witness against Short at trial was a jailhouse informant who testified in return for leniency on charges that he was facing. Defense counsel at trial sought to present testimony of a third inmate in the same cell who was prepared to refute everything that the jailhouse informant had said. However, the trial judge refused to let this witness testify, and…

Prof. John Blume of Cornell University Law School has compiled the cases in which an inmate’s death sentence was reduced because of a finding of mental retardation. His research revealed 83 such reversals since 2002. In Atkins v. Virginia (2002), the U.S. Supreme Court held that it is unconstitutional to apply the death penalty to defendants with mental retardation. The Court did not, however, establish a definition for mental retardation or determine the procedures for proving a claim of…

U.S. District Court Judge Sam Sparks in Texas has ruled Scott Panetti mentally competent enough to be executed. Panetti’s earlier path to execution was blocked by the U.S. Supreme Court, which heard his appeal in 2007 (Panetti v. Quarterman). The Court held that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit had used too narrow a standard in deciding whether Panetti had an understanding of why he was to be executed. The Court also held that Texas had not given Panetti an adequate hearing to…

The highly acclaimed film At the Death House Door premieres on the Independent Film Channel on May 29, 2008. This documentary provides a unique perspective into the people who participate in executions in Huntsville, Texas. Viewers experience what it means to work on death row through the eyes of Pastor Carroll Pickett, who served 15 years as the death house chaplain and presided over 95 executions (including the world’s first lethal injection). Following each execution, Pastor Pickett recorded…