Publications & Testimony

Stateline​.org​’s recent ​“State of the States” report fea­tures an exten­sive arti­cle on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment trends in the United States. The piece includes a thor­ough review of lethal injec­tion chal­lenges in the states, as well as a brief update on the issue of inno­cence and an overview of oth­er state leg­isla­tive devel­op­ments, such as efforts to autho­rize the death penal­ty for some crimes oth­er than mur­der. The arti­cle notes that ques­tions about lethal injec­tion put the death…

Former Texas death row inmate Kerry Max Cook has authored a book detail­ing his wrong­ful con­vic­tion and his 22-year fight for free­dom. Cook’s book, ​“Chasing Justice,” pro­vides a first-hand account of his tri­al, his two-decade stay on death row in Texas, and his release after DNA evi­dence linked anoth­er man to the crime for which he was sen­tenced to die. Publisher HarperCollins notes that the book is ​“a shock­ing look inside death row, a legal thriller, and an inspirational story…

The North Carolina Medical Board, which licens­es and dis­ci­plines doc­tors in the state, has unan­i­mous­ly vot­ed to make it uneth­i­cal for a physi­cian to par­tic­i­pate in exe­cu­tions. Under the new pol­i­cy, doc­tors and nurs­es employed by the prison sys­tem won’t be desci­plined for ​“mere­ly being ​‘present’ dur­ing an exe­cu­tion,” but are for­bid­den from admin­is­ter­ing the lethal drugs or phys­i­cal­ly assist­ing with the exe­cu­tion. The North Carolina Medical Board rul­ing comes as the state continues its…

A fed­er­al jury chose a sen­tence of life with­out parole for Tyrone Williams (pic­tured) for his role in a human-smug­gling oper­a­tion that left 19 ille­gal immi­grants dead. In December, the same jurors con­vict­ed Williams of 58 smug­gling counts, 20 of which car­ried the death penal­ty as a sen­tenc­ing option. Williams, who aban­doned about 100 immi­grants sealed in his truck­’s refrig­er­a­tion trailor after deter­min­ing that it had become a death trap in 2003, is the third per­son to face federal…

A Dallas man who spent near­ly half of his life in prison or on parole for a crime he did not com­mit was recent­ly exon­er­at­ed after DNA evi­dence cleared him of rap­ing a 12-year-old boy in 1982. James Waller is the 12^th per­son since 2001 whose con­vic­tion in Dallas County has been over­turned as a result of genet­ic evi­dence. ​“Nowhere else in the nation have so many indi­vid­ual wrong­ful con­vic­tions been proven in one coun­ty in such a short span,” said attor­ney Barry Scheck. Scheck and his…

In a recent New York Times op-ed, University of Chicago law and crim­i­nol­o­gy pro­fes­sor Bernard Harcourt notes that a grow­ing num­ber of indi­vid­u­als ​“who used to be tracked for men­tal health treat­ment are now get­ting a one-way tick­et to jail.” Pointing to a Justice Department study released in September 2006, Harcourt notes that 56% of those jailed in state pris­ons and 64% of all inmates across the nation report­ed men­tal health prob­lems with­in the past year. He states that one rea­son for the…

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case regard­ing the exclu­sion of cap­i­tal jurors to its dock­et this term. The case, Uttecht v. Brown, No. 06 – 413, involves the removal of a poten­tial juror from a death penal­ty tri­al because of the juror’s views about cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. In this case, dur­ing jury selec­tion in a Washington state mur­der case, the tri­al judge dis­missed a juror because of state­ments he made about his will­ing­ness to impose a death sen­tence. After the…

In an opin­ion piece in the New York Times, for­mer New Jersey Supreme Court Justice Peter G. Verniero (pic­tured) said that the state should replace its flawed death penal­ty with the sen­tence of life with­out parole. Verniero is a for­mer sup­port­er of the death penal­ty, but now believes that the cur­rent statute is ​“inef­fec­tive,” ​“con­sumes enor­mous ener­gy and resources,” and the state ​“lacks the col­lec­tive will to car­ry out cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment.” He…

Reggie Wilkinson, who wit­nessed 19 exe­cu­tions dur­ing his 33 years with the Ohio Department of Corrections, recent­ly stat­ed that he would like to see exe­cu­tions end­ed in the state. Wilkinson, who served for 15 years as Director of the Department of Corrections and advo­cat­ed for aban­don­ing the state’s elec­tric chair and replac­ing it with lethal injec­tion, not­ed, ​“I would not oppose the abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty. The United States is the only indus­tri­al­ized nation in the world with…

In a recent Dallas Morning News edi­to­r­i­al, the paper not­ed the incon­gruity between the state apol­o­giz­ing to a prison inmate who was freed fol­low­ing DNA test­ing, and its aggres­sive pur­suit of irrev­o­ca­ble exe­cu­tions. The paper stat­ed that ​“human error is an inher­ent part” of the jus­tice sys­tem and called on leg­is­la­tors to enact a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions until the state can review the accu­ra­cy and fair­ness of its cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment process, because ​“For the…