Publications & Testimony

The Innocence Commission, a new book by Jon B. Gould, describes how the advent of DNA testing and other forensic advances in the criminal justice system have led to serious efforts to understand how so many wrongful convictions have happened. In particular, The Innocence Commission details the first years of the Innocence Commission for Virginia (ICVA), which was the first in the country to conduct systemic research into all wrongful convictions in the state. Gould, the Chair of ICVA, examines…

Federal District Court Judge Jack B. Weinstein said recently that seeking the death penalty against Humberto Pepin Taveras in New York is not worth the effort of prosecutors or taxpayers’ money. “Based on the history of cases tried in metropolitan New York, the chance of Pepin receiving the death penalty is virtually nil,” Weinstein said. The case against Taveras, who confessed to murdering two drug traffickers in the 1990s while already serving more than 12 years in prison for other crimes…

During his 15-year tenure on the court, Orange County Superior Court Judge Donald McCartin sentenced nine men to death. Now retired, Judge McCartin no longer believes in the death penalty. “It’s a waste of time and taxpayers’ money,” Judge McCartin said. “It cost 10 times more to kill these guys than to keep them alive in prison. It’s absurd. And imagine the poor victims’ families having to go through this again and again.” All but one of the nine men Judge McCartin sentenced to death still…

Connecticut Superior Court Judge Stanley T. Fuger ruled on February 27 that a suit alleging racial and geographic bias in the state’s death penalty should not be dismissed. Judge Fuger is allowing the claim from seven death row inmates to continue because the state’s constitution gives defendants greater legal rights than the U.S. Constitution. The U.S. Supreme Court had rejected a similar claim about Georgia’s death penalty in 1987 based on federal constitutional grounds. In his ruling on a…

Two recent articles in the Dallas Morning News detail the lives of those affected by the wrongful imprisonment of Christopher Ochoa and Richard Danziger in Texas. For some, their faith in the criminal justice system has been shattered. Twelve years after being sentenced to life in prison for a 1988 rape and murder, Ochoa and Danziger were exonerated by DNA evidence. At the time of his arrest, Ochoa, after 15 hours of interrogation, gave a false confession to the police, who fed him facts and…

At a hearing of the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice held in Los Angeles, the mother of a murder victim testified about why she believed the death penalty does not serve victims’ needs. Aba Gayle’s daughter, Catherine Blount, was a teenager when she was murdered in 1980 by Douglas Mickey. At first, Gayle told the Commission, “The district attorney assured me that the execution of the man responsible for Catherine’s murder would help me heal, and for many years I…

The Georgia Senate Appropriations Committee cut the state public defender budget to $513,000, less than 15% of what Gov. Sonny Perdue had recommended to cover costs until the end of June. The governor had originally sought $3.6 million for the Public Defender Standards Council, which is now concerned that without necessary funds, the Georgia court system will come to a standstill, including their defense in capital cases. House Majority Leader Jerry Keen said that additional funding would have…

A recent poll by NationalChristianPoll.com found that two-thirds of active Christians who oppose the death penalty are concerned about judicial error that could lead to an innocent person being executed. The poll also found that of Christians who do support the death penalty, 60% do so because of biblical teachings. According to a Pew Forum poll from 2007, the strongest supporters of the death penalty are white evangelicals, with 74% approval. However, John Whitehead, president of the…