Publications & Testimony

On May 12, the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari in Bell v. Kelly, No. 07 – 1223, where the petitioner challenged a lower court’s dismissal of his claim of ineffectiveness of counsel. Edward Nathaniel Bell stated that his trial lawyers presented no mitigating evidence on his behalf at his sentencing hearing, despite the existence of many sympathetic facts that might have led a jury to vote for a life sentence. The state court presented with this claim did not hold a hearing on whether Bell…

In May 2008, the California Supreme Court threw out the death sentence of convicted murderer Adam Miranda and ordered a new sentencing trial, ruling that Los Angeles County prosecutors failed to disclose key information that likely affected the sentencing of Miranda. A Los Angeles Times editorial highlights the arbitrariness of this case, noting that many defendants without dedicated representation might not have fared so well. This editorial asks about the other inmates on California’s death…

Recent exonerations from death row, such as the release of Levon Jones in North Carolina on May 3, have been linked to the poor quality of representation some of these inmates received. This raises particular concern as the nation resumed executions on May 6. William Lynd of Georgia was the first person executed since Sept. 25, 2007. But Georgia’s new public defender system has had its budget cut back and has been forced to eliminate more than 40 positions. Robin Maher of the American Bar…

Georgia is planning to excute William Earl Lynd at 7 PM on May 6. If the lethal injection goes forward, this would be first execution in the U.S. since September 25, 2007. On that day, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a challenge to the lethal injection process in Baze v. Rees. On April 16, 2008, the Court upheld the process of lethal injection as practiced in Kentucky, signalling a probable end to the 7‑month moratorium on executions. However, the possible resumption of executions comes…

Eighteen people have been exonerated of serious violent crimes from a single Texas county through DNA-testing in recent years. James Woodward was the latest person to be freed from confinement from Dallas County. He spent 27 years in prison for the wrongful conviction of raping and murdering his girlfriend in 1981. Statewide in Texas there have been 30 such exonerations. As a partial response, state Senator Rodney Ellis has called for a summit on innocence to take place on May 8, beginning in…

The state of North Carolina dropped all charges against Levon Jones, and he was freed today (May 2) after spending 13 years on death row. U.S. District Court Judge Terrence Boyle overturned Jones’s conviction two years ago, but he was held in prison awaiting a possible retrial until prosecutors announced that they were dismissing all charges. Judge Boyle criticized Jones’s defense attorneys for “constitutionally deficient” performance, noting their failure to research the history and…

According to a recent study by Prof. David Sloss of the St. Louis University School of Law, and others, only a small percentage of eligible murder cases in Missouri are prosecuted as death penalty cases, and even fewer result in a death sentence. Only 2.5 percent of defendants prosecuted for intentional homicide are sentenced to death. In another 2.5 percent of cases, juries reject the death penalty. Ninety-five percent of intentional homicide cases are never presented to the jury as capital…

A new study by Professor Scott Phillips of the Univeristy of Denver found that black defendants in Houston, Texas, are more likely to be sentenced to death than white defendants, even when other variables are accounted for. The research, to be published in a forthcoming edition of the Houston Law Review, looked at cases eligible for the death penalty in the county that is the source of the highest number of executions in Texas, which itself is responsible for more executions than any other…