Publications & Testimony

An Oklahoma man could be exe­cut­ed or spared based on which side of a grav­el road in rur­al McIntosh County a mur­der took place. Patrick Murphey, who is bor­der­line-men­tal­ly retard­ed and was drunk at the time of the crime, was orig­i­nal­ly sen­tenced to death for the mur­der in 2000. His tri­al attor­ney failed to notice that the pros­e­cu­tion had made a two-mile mis­take in locat­ing the site of the crime. Murphey’s sec­ond attor­ney, who spent 11 years as a geol­o­gist with Conoco before…

Missouri Rep. Bill Deeken (pic­tured), a Republican death penal­ty pro­po­nent, has intro­duced leg­is­la­tion that would halt exe­cu­tions in the state until 2011 and would cre­ate a cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment com­mis­sion to exam­ine the fair­ness and accu­ra­cy of Missouri’s death penal­ty. Deeken stat­ed that his moti­va­tion for the bill came after real­iz­ing that the state’s death penal­ty has not been imple­ment­ed fair­ly in all cas­es and it does not ade­quate­ly pre­vent wrong­ful con­vic­tions. He not­ed, ​“I am not against…

Judiciary Committee — Colorado House of Representatives: Testimony of Richard C. Dieter (February 7,…

For the first time in near­ly two decades, mem­bers of the Nebraska​’s uni­cam­er­al leg­is­la­ture will have an oppor­tu­ni­ty to debate a bill that would repeal the state’s death penal­ty and replace it with a sen­tence of life with­out parole and an order of resti­tu­tion. Members of the leg­is­la­ture’s Judiciary Committee unan­i­mous­ly advanced the bill, not­ing that their col­leagues in the full sen­ate should have a chance to debate the mea­sure. The bil­l’s spon­sor, Senator…

Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen has issued an exec­u­tive order estab­lish­ing a 90-day halt to exe­cu­tions in the state due to con­cerns that there aren’t enough instruc­tions pro­vid­ed dur­ing the exe­cu­tion process. The mora­to­ri­um will halt four exe­cu­tions sched­uled in Tennessee dur­ing the next three months. In an offi­cial state­ment, Governor Bredesen said: ​“I think all of you know that I con­sid­er the respon­si­bil­i­ty of the state to car­ry out the death penal­ty among the very most serious…

Willie Williams has been freed from a Georgia prison after spend­ing half of his life, 22 years, behind bars for a crime he did not com­mit. ​“I nev­er gave up,” Williams said fol­low­ing his release, which came just 5 days after the Georgia Innocence Project dis­cov­ered Williams’ DNA did not match a swab tak­en from the woman he was con­vict­ed of rap­ing in 1985. After learn­ing about the DNA evi­dence exclud­ing Williams, Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard ordered Williams…

After spend­ing 15 years in a New York prison for mur­der, Roy Brown has been exon­er­at­ed through DNA evi­dence and is free. Brown is the eighth per­son in New York to be exon­er­at­ed due to DNA evi­dence in the past 13 months, more than in any oth­er state dur­ing the same peri­od. While in prison, Brown con­duct­ed his own inves­ti­ga­tion of his wrong­ful con­vic­tion and found doc­u­ments incrim­i­nat­ing anoth­er man in the mur­der of Sabina Kulakowski. The doc­u­ments point­ed to Barry Bench, a volunteer…

The Death Penalty in the United States: Strategies for Change (visu­als) by Richard C. Dieter at the World Congress on the Death Penalty (February 1,…

U.S. District Judge Frederick Block recent­ly told fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors that pur­su­ing a death sen­tence for Kenneth McGriff would be an ​“absurd” waste of time and mon­ey. According to a court tran­script, while jurors were on a break dur­ing clos­ing argu­ments of the guilt phase of McGriff’s tri­al, Block advised pros­e­cu­tors to con­tact their super­vi­sors in Washington, DC, and ask them to recon­sid­er their deci­sion to seek the death penal­ty if McGriff is con­vict­ed in a con­tract killing con­spir­a­cy. He…

Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley (pic­tured) has said that he plans on sup­port­ing recent­ly intro­duced leg­is­la­tion to repeal the state’s death penal­ty. ​“I’ve had a pret­ty con­sis­tent posi­tion on this. Now that it’s salient, I’m cer­tain­ly not going to try to duck or hide. I would like to see us repeal the death penal­ty,” stat­ed O’Malley, who has argued that the death penal­ty is not a deter­rent and that mon­ey spent on pros­e­cut­ing death penal­ty cas­es could be bet­ter spent fighting violent…