Publications & Testimony

The California Supreme Court has unan­i­mous­ly ruled that a defen­dant may be spared the death penal­ty because he is men­tal­ly defi­cient in one area, even if his IQ score falls in the nor­mal range. The deci­sion gives judges broad­er dis­cre­tion to spare defen­dants from exe­cu­tion for rea­sons of men­tal impair­ment and clar­i­fies a 2005 rul­ing that allowed those on death row to chal­lenge their sen­tences on the grounds of men­tal retar­da­tion. The court ruled that…

Three orga­ni­za­tions whose mem­ber­ships include fam­i­ly mem­bers of mur­der vic­tims recent­ly issued a joint state­ment in con­junc­tion with National Crime Victims’ Rights Week, which takes place April 22 — 28, 2007. The state­ment, issued by the lead­ers of Murder Victims’ Families for Human Rights, Murder Victims’ Families for Reconciliation, and Journey of Hope, called for gov­ern­men­tal poli­cies that serve the true needs of fam­i­ly mem­bers. The groups…

(Pictured left to right, Harold Wilson, Barry Scheck, and Sam Millsap) During a press con­fer­ence near the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, 16 for­mer death row inmates whose con­vic­tions were over­turned joined not­ed attor­ney Barry Scheck (pic­tured) and for­mer Texas pros­e­cu­tor Sam Millsap (pic­tured) in call­ing for a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions in Pennsylvania. Harold C. Wilson (pic­tured), the most recent of six death row exonerees in the state, not­ed that he spent 16 years on…

A Cincinnati Enquirer inves­ti­ga­tion of Ohio cap­i­tal cas­es found that more death sen­tences are over­turned in the state because of mis­takes by defense lawyers than for any oth­er rea­son. Reporters with the Enquirer found that 15 peo­ple on Ohio’s death row won fed­er­al appeals dur­ing the past sev­en years based entire­ly or in part on the poor per­for­mance of their lawyers.​“It’s a big, big prob­lem. The lawyers don’t have the where­with­al to put on a first-class defense,”…

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…