Publications & Testimony

Commenting on the recent halt­ing of exe­cu­tions over the lethal injec­tion con­tro­ver­sy and DPIC’s Year End Report, the Boston Globe raised the ques­tion of​“whether exe­cu­tion by any method is right.” Their edi­to­r­i­al con­clud­ed that “[t]his hit-and-miss sys­tem offers no pro­tec­tion for soci­ety,” and stat­ed that a life-with­­out parole alter­na­tive would​“pro­tect soci­ety while allow­ing for redress if a pris­on­er could show he was wrong­ly con­vict­ed. A ban on…

The rul­ing from U.S. District Court Judge Jeremy Fogel (pic­tured) on Friday, December 15, appears intend­ed to spur California pub­lic offi­cials to mod­i­fy the cur­rent sys­tem of putting inmates to death. Judge Fogel’s order was not a final deci­sion, but rather a​“Memorandum of Intended Decision: Request for Response from Defendants.” The defen­dants in this case are the cor­rec­tions offi­cials of the state, includ­ing, ulti­mate­ly, the gov­er­nor, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Judge Fogel…

Florida​’s gov­er­nor halt­ed all exe­cu­tions in the state until a com­mis­sion can inves­ti­gate and report what went wrong with the lethal injec­tion of Angel Nieves Diaz on December 13. Gov. Jeb Bush issued an exec­u­tive order announc­ing a pan­el of experts to make rec­om­men­da­tions for changes to the process and said that no death war­rants will be signed until mod­i­fi­ca­tions are adopt­ed. Diaz’s exe­cu­tion took more than twice as long as nor­mal and required two…

DPIC’s 12^th annu­al Year End Report was released on December 14 and reveals a broad decline in the use of the death penal­ty in the U.S. based on a num­ber of fac­tors: the pub­lic now favors life with­out parole over the death penal­ty; the num­ber of exe­cu­tions has dropped to the fewest in a decade, in part because of chal­lenges to the lethal injec­tion process; and the annu­al num­ber of death sen­tences is now at a 30-year low. The report notes that var­i­ous states have put…

Although no jury has returned a death sen­tence in a fed­er­al case in Puerto Rico in mod­ern times, more cas­es are pend­ing, rais­ing con­cerns among many cit­i­zens. Puerto Rico bars the death penal­ty in its con­sti­tu­tion. However, a U.S. Court of Appeals deci­sion in 2001 held that the fed­er­al death penal­ty can be applied there. This deci­sion over­turned a low­er court that ruled the use of the fed­er­al death penal­ty in the Commonwealth would be uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. The issue…

The Albany Democrat-Herald in Oregon recent­ly edi­to­ri­al­ized that the​“death penal­ty isn’t work­ing,” and con­clud­ed​“that the death penal­ty here is a point­less law. If we’re not going to apply this law, then get­ting rid of it would be the less expen­sive course.” The edi­to­r­i­al cit­ed the pos­si­bil­i­ty of error, the arbi­trari­ness of apply­ing the pun­ish­ment to some dan­ger­ous offend­ers but not oth­ers, and the dif­fi­cul­ty of ever…

The Death Penalty Subcommittee of the Committee on Public Defense of the Washington State Bar has pre­pared a report on the state’s death penal­ty that will be sub­mit­ted to the Bar Association’s Board of Governors in ear­ly 2007. The Subcommittee was formed to exam­ine the costs of the state’s death penal­ty and to rec­om­mend whether the death penal­ty should be con­tin­ued, giv­en the expens­es and the state’s expe­ri­ence in car­ry­ing out death sen­tences. The Death Penalty Subcommittee…

The Bureau of Justice Statistics has just released the 2005 ver­sion of its annu­al report on the death penal­ty in the U.S. The report notes that both the num­ber of death sen­tences and the size of death row were down for 2005, and that this rep­re­sents a trend over the past 5 years. The report states that there were 60 exe­cu­tions in 2005, all by lethal injec­tion, and that the time between sen­tenc­ing and exe­cu­tion was longer in 2005…

On December 5, Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania intro­duced leg­is­la­tion (S. 4081) to restore the right to habeas cor­pus to those deemed to be ene­my com­bat­ants and who are fac­ing tri­al before mil­i­tary com­mis­sions, includ­ing those being detained at the U.S. Guantanamo prison in Cuba. Habeas cor­pus pro­vides an avenue for inmates in deten­tion to chal­lenge the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of their con­fine­ment. The roots of this protection…

Recently in Ohio and oth­er states, some inmates chal­leng­ing the lethal injec­tion process in fed­er­al courts have been giv­en stays of exe­cu­tions, while oth­ers, sim­i­lar­ly sit­u­at­ed, have been denied stays and have been exe­cut­ed. This incon­sis­tent appli­ca­tion of fed­er­al law in cap­i­tal cas­es has raised con­cerns among a num­ber of fed­er­al judges. A stay was recent­ly grant­ed to Ohio inmate Jerome Henderson, but denied to Jeffrey Lundgren. On December 6, U.S. District…