Publications & Testimony

The New Mexico House of Representatives has approved leg­is­la­tion that would repeal the death penal­ty and replace it with a sen­tence of life with­out parole. Supporters of the mea­sure say that it will save tax­pay­ers an esti­mat­ed $3 mil­lion a year, mon­ey they con­tend would be bet­ter spent on help­ing vic­tims’ fam­i­lies. They also note that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment could result in an inno­cent per­son being exe­cut­ed, does not deter mur­der, and is unfairly…

A new report issued by Amnesty International focus­es on the case of Georgia death row inmate Troy Davis to illus­trate the issue of inno­cence and the legal hur­dles that death row inmates face in seek­ing judi­cial relief. The report — ​‘Where is the jus­tice for me?’ The case of Troy Davis, Facing Execution in Georgia — notes that Davis has been on death row for 15 years for a mur­der that he main­tains he did not com­mit. Many of the state’s wit­ness­es against Davis…

Christopher Scott Emmett could face exe­cu­tion in Virginia before the end of the year despite the fact that his legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion fell short of decades-old American Bar Association stan­dards, accord­ing to an inves­ti­ga­tion by McClatchy Newspapers reporter Stephen Henderson. Emmett was sen­tenced to death in 2001, and his sto­ry was among the 73 cas­es reviewed recent­ly in the McClatchy series. During the…

A recent Kansas poll found that near­ly two-thirds of respon­dents said they pre­fer a sen­tence of life in prison with­out parole in which the offend­ers would work in prison to pay resti­tu­tion to the vic­tims’ fam­i­lies as an alter­na­tive to the death penal­ty. The poll also revealed that many Kansans think cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment is hand­ed out unfair­ly. Fifty-sev­en per­cent of respon­dents said they believe that some peo­ple are exe­cut­ed while oth­ers serve prison time for…

In the Shadow of Death: Restorative Justice and Death Row Families is a new book by Professors Elizabeth Beck, Sarah Britto, and Arlene Andrews that exam­ines the debil­i­tat­ing effects that a death sen­tence can have on the fam­i­lies of the offend­ers. With a for­ward by Steve Earle, the book pro­vides an in-depth analy­sis of restora­tive jus­tice, which focus­es on crime as an act against an indi­vid­ual or the com­mu­ni­ty, rather than the state. In their exam­i­na­tion of how…

An Associated Press inves­ti­ga­tion of Tennessee’s ​“Manual for Execution” found that the guide for lethal injec­tions con­tains con­flict­ing instruc­tions and mix­es new pro­ce­dures with old guide­lines for car­ry­ing out elec­tro­cu­tions. The man­u­al instructs prison offi­cials to shave the con­demned pris­on­er’s head pri­or to an exe­cu­tion, as if prepar­ing him for elec­tro­cu­tion, and orders that they have a fire extin­guish­er near­by. It also provides…

The Fairer Death: Executing Women in Ohio is a new book by Victor Streib, a pro­fes­sor at the Ohio Northern University College of Law. The book explores Ohio’s use of the death penal­ty for women and exam­ines the impli­ca­tions for women on death row through­out the coun­try. Streib care­ful­ly describes the cas­es of all four women exe­cut­ed by Ohio in its his­to­ry and those of the 11 women sen­tenced to death in the state dur­ing the mod­ern death penal­ty era (1973-present). Professor…

Professor David Gushee, Graves Professor of Moral Philosophy at Union University in Jackson, Tennessee, called for a nation­al halt to exe­cu­tions because the death penal­ty as a pub­lic pol­i­cy​“fails the most basic stan­dards of jus­tice.” Prof. Gushee, writ­ing for the Associated Baptist Press, stat­ed that the recent mora­to­ri­um in Tennessee sur­round­ing lethal injec­tion prob­lems should be extend­ed to review the entire…

The Colorado House Judiciary Committee recent­ly vot­ed to abol­ish the state’s death penal­ty, replac­ing it with a sen­tence of life-with­­out-parole, and use the mon­ey cur­rent­ly spent on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment to help solve 1,200 cold-case homi­cides in the state. The 7 – 4 vote fol­lowed four hours of tes­ti­mo­ny from mur­der vic­tims’ fam­i­ly mem­bers, state law enforce­ment offi­cials, and death penal­ty experts, includ­ing DPIC Executive Director Richard Dieter. The…

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…