Publications & Testimony

Noting that they​“can­not rec­on­cile the fact that [the death penal­ty] is both imper­fect and irre­versible,” the Dallas Morning News has called on Texas to aban­don cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. The paper, which has long sup­port­ed the death penal­ty, changed its posi­tion after care­ful con­sid­er­a­tion of mount­ing evi­dence that the state has wrong­ly con­vict­ed a num­ber of defen­dants in cap­i­tal tri­als and has like­ly exe­cut­ed at least one man who…

On Wednesday, April 18, at 1 PM, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral argu­ments in Panetti v. Quarterman. This case focus­es on the ques­tion of whether an inmate must have a ratio­nal under­stand­ing of his crime and why he is being pun­ished pri­or to exe­cu­tion, or whether mere aware­ness of his sit­u­a­tion is suf­fi­cient for men­tal com­pe­ten­cy. For a fuller descrip­tion of the case, see Supreme Court (Pending 2007 cas­es). This page includes links to some of…

Kenneth Tinsley plead­ed guilty on April 11 to the 1982 rape and cap­i­tal mur­der of a Culpeper woman — a crime for which anoth­er man, Earl Washington Jr., spent near­ly a decade on death row and was near­ly exe­cut­ed. Tinsley admit­ted to the rape of Rebecca Lynn Williams, a 19-year-old moth­er of 3, and con­ced­ed that DNA and oth­er evi­dence could have proved his guilt…

Challenges to the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of North Carolina’s lethal injec­tion pro­ce­dures have put exe­cu­tions on hold, and it appears they will remain that way for the fore­see­able future. Though some law­mak­ers are push­ing for a leg­isla­tive​“fix” to ques­tions raised about the pro­ce­dures, Governor Mike Easley and Democratic law­mak­ers — who con­trol the leg­is­la­ture — have no plans to end the exe­cu­tion stand­still pri­or to clear court action. ​“The leg­is­la­ture isn’t…

Amnesty International has released a new report entitled ​“Justice Delayed and Justice Denied? Trials under the Military Commissions Act.” This report exam­ines whether pro­ceed­ings under the revised U.S. Military Commissions Act will com­ply with inter­na­tion­al stan­dards, espe­cial­ly when the death penal­ty is sought. In par­tic­u­lar, it explores the rights of detainees under inter­na­tion­al human rights law, the Geneva Conventions and the U.S. Constitution. (Amnesty…

Anderson Cooper 360 Blog — Monday, April…

The Sentinel news­pa­per of Pennsylvania is the lat­est paper to edi­to­ri­al­ly con­clude that the death penal­ty should be abol­ished. Shortly after it pub­lished an inves­tiga­tive piece out­lin­ing the inef­fec­tive­ness of Pennsylvania’s death penal­ty, the news­pa­per edi­to­ri­al­ized that the state’s cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment laws are​“use­less” and that the​“pen­du­lum is swing­ing away from Pennsylvania’s posi­tion on a law it can­not even exe­cute.” The Central Pennsylvania-based…

If James Lee Clark is exe­cut­ed in Texas on April 11, he will be the 12^th Texas inmate exe­cut­ed out of 13 exe­cu­tions nation­wide in 2007. According to some psy­cho­log­i­cal tests, Clark has an IQ of 68 or low­er, which is one of the com­mon cri­te­ria for men­tal retar­da­tion. Clark’s defense team has asked the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and Texas Governor Rick Perry to halt the exe­cu­tion because of the like­li­hood that Clark suffers from…

From 1999 to 2004, Dr. Johnny Glenn was the only foren­sic pathol­o­gist per­form­ing autop­sies in the poor­est part of Alabama. He was assist­ed only by lab tech­ni­cians as he per­formed hun­dreds of autop­sies annu­al­ly, includ­ing at least one death penal­ty case. After his abrupt depar­ture, it was dis­cov­ered that Glenn rou­tine­ly put aside his notes and often failed to fin­ish final reports or dia­grams that are cru­cial to death inves­ti­ga­tions. Two of his former…

“Justice Talking” on National Public Radio recent­ly addressed cur­rent death penal­ty issues, includ­ing an exam­i­na­tion of the con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ing lethal injec­tions. The pro­gram, which is avail­able online, fea­tured an overview of the U.S. death penal­ty by pro­fes­sor John Blume, founder and direc­tor of the Cornell Death Penalty Project at Cornell University, and an inter­view with Deborah Denno, a pro­fes­sor of law at Fordham University who is one of the nation’s…