Publications & Testimony

“Towards the Abolition of the Death Penalty in Africa: A Human Rights Perspective” is a new book by Lilian Chenwi that exam­ines the his­to­ry of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in Africa and the con­ti­nen­t’s emerg­ing trend away from the death penal­ty. In her book, Chenwi details the impact that both inter­na­tion­al human rights orga­ni­za­tions and inter­na­tion­al treaties have had on shift­ing African views about cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. This resource includes chap­ters on the history…

California has pro­posed new lethal injec­tion pro­ce­dures that attempt to sat­is­fy the con­cerns raised by U.S. District Court Judge Jeremy Fogel, who found that the state’s pre­vi­ous prac­tice was uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. The new pro­to­col does not change the exist­ing three-drug cock­tail and will not require a doc­tor’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in exe­cu­tions. Defense attor­neys for Michael Morales, whose appeal led to the state’s cur­rent mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions, said the new protocol…

A new Web page launched by the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty fea­tures infor­ma­tion about four men who have been exe­cut­ed but who may have been inno­cent. The site, based on NCADP’s report​“Innocent and Executed: Four Chapters in the Life and Death of America’s Death Penalty,” pro­vides an in-depth look at the strong post-exe­cu­­tion inno­cence claims that have sur­faced in the cas­es of Cameron Todd Willingham, Carlos DeLuna, and Ruben Cantu, all of Texas, and…

Byron Halsey, who nar­row­ly escaped a death sen­tence in New Jersey in 1988, had his con­vic­tion vacat­ed after DNA tests point­ed to anoth­er man as the assailant. Halsey’s defense attor­neys from the New York-based Innocence Project and the Union County District Attorney’s Office had asked a state judge to grant a joint motion to vacate Halsey’s con­vic­tion for the sex­u­al assault and mur­der of two young chil­dren. The motion states that DNA test­ing on several…

Acclaimed author John Grisham recent­ly told The Kansas City Star that the death penal­ty should be​“abol­ished for­ev­er” in the United States.​“I think the sys­tem is so bad­ly flawed that all exe­cu­tions should be stopped.… Let’s start with the basic con­cept of a fair tri­al. We are so far away from that in every state in this coun­try,” said Grisham, an attor­ney whose views on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment start­ed to shift when he wrote​“The Chamber,” a nov­el that deals…

Florida’s Department of Corrections estab­lished new exe­cu­tion pro­to­cols for car­ry­ing out lethal injec­tions at the request of the gov­er­nor, fol­low­ing the botched exe­cu­tion of Angel Diaz in December 2006. Excerpts from the new protocols…

Curtis Edward McCarty, who had been sen­tenced to die three times and has spent 21 years on Oklahoma​’s death row for a crime he did not com­mit, has been released after District Court Judge Twyla Mason Gray ordered that the charges against him be dis­missed. Gray ruled that the case against McCarty was taint­ed by the ques­tion­able tes­ti­mo­ny of for­mer police chemist Joyce Gilchrist, who gave improp­er expert tes­ti­mo­ny about semen and hair evi­dence dur­ing McCarty’s…

The New Jersey Senate Judiciary Committee will hold hear­ings on May 10, 2007, on leg­is­la­tion that would replace the state’s death penal­ty with a sen­tence of life with­out parole. If passed, New Jersey would become the first state since cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment was rein­stat­ed to abol­ish the death penal­ty leg­isla­tive­ly. The bill stems from a January report issued by a spe­cial study com­mis­sion appoint­ed by the New Jersey leg­is­la­ture. The com­mis­sion’s…

In​“Dead Wrong: Violence, Vengeance, and the Victims of Capital Punishment,” author Richard Stack uses cas­es to exam­ine three of the main caus­es of wrong­ful con­vic­tions — mis­tak­en eye­wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny, offi­cial mis­con­duct, and incom­pe­tent coun­sel. Stack, a pro­fes­sor at American University’s School of Communication, based the book on three years of research con­duct­ed with the assis­tance of stu­dents enrolled in his pub­lic com­mu­ni­ca­tion class­es. He said that he…

North Carolina​’s leg­is­la­ture recent­ly took an impor­tant step toward becom­ing the nation’s sec­ond state to pass a Racial Justice Act, leg­is­la­tion that gives defen­dants the oppor­tu­ni­ty to chal­lenge the death penal­ty based on stud­ies show­ing racial bias. The bill was quick­ly approved by mem­bers of the House Judiciary II Committee and will now go before the…