Publications & Testimony

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…

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…

A recent four-part news inves­ti­ga­tion by McClatchey News exam­ined the qual­i­ty of coun­sel in four death penal­ty states. The series, ​“No Defense: Shortcut to Death Row,” explores cap­i­tal rep­re­sen­ta­tion in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and Virginia. The research revealed that those states have exten­sive prob­lems with ade­quate coun­sel, a fact under­scored in the series through case exam­ples that illus­trate the sys­tems’ inadequacies.

“Living With the Death Penalty” is a new book that exam­ines the impact of exe­cu­tions on cor­rec­tion­al offi­cers, offend­ers, chap­lains, attor­neys, and vic­tims’ fam­i­ly mem­bers. In this book, author Courtney Vaughn, a rape vic­tim and an Educational Leadership and Policy Studies pro­fes­sor at the University of Oklahoma, offers first-per­­son accounts of what it is like to expe­ri­ence the death penal­ty from a vari­ety of per­spec­tives. She explores the sacrifice,…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…