Publications & Testimony

There is grow­ing con­cern among nation­al men­tal health and legal orga­ni­za­tions regard­ing inmates on death row who are severe­ly men­tal­ly ill. Many of these inmates had been exhibit­ing clear signs of men­tal ill­ness at the time of their crimes, and some, like Scott Panetti in Texas and Guy LeGrande in North Carolina, were allowed to rep­re­sent them­selves at tri­al, despite their bizarre behav­ior. Mr. Panetti, who was hos­pi­tal­ized 14 times for men­tal prob­lems pri­or to his…

The Kentucky Supreme Court reject­ed claims by death row inmates that the state’s lethal injec­tion process risks wan­ton and excru­ci­at­ing pain in vio­la­tion of the ban on cru­el and unusal pun­ish­ments. The Court upheld a 2005 low­er court rul­ing sim­i­lar­ly reject­ing the claims of inmates Ralph Baze and Thomas C. Bowling. In its unan­i­mous rul­ing, the Supreme Court held:​“Conflicting med­ical tes­ti­mo­ny pre­vents us from stat­ing cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly that a pris­on­er feels no…

The last exe­cu­tion sched­uled for 2006 involves a Florida inmate, Angel Nieves-Diaz, who defend­ed him­self at his tri­al and need­ed an inter­preter because he did not speak English. Diaz, a native of Puerto Rico, was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in 1986 for a mur­der in con­nec­tion with a rob­bery of a bar in Miami in 1979. Diaz’s exe­cu­tion is sched­uled for December 13 and would be the 4^th exe­cu­tion in Florida this year, the most exe­cu­tions in that state in 6 years. In…

The annu­al num­ber of death sen­tences in Texas has declined from 40 in fis­cal year 1996 to 14 in 2006, a drop of 65%, accord­ing to the State Office of Court Administration. Last year there were 15 new death sen­tences. This decrease is in line with the nation­al decline in death sen­tences, which dropped from about 300 per year in the 1990s to 125 in 2005. The drop in Texas was par­tic­u­lar­ly marked in Harris County (Houston), which pro­duced the most death sen­tences of any county in…

Mark Urban, chair­man of the Governor’s Advocacy Council for Persons with Disabilities, has request­ed that North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley ful­ly con­sid­er death row inmate Guy LeGrande’s request for clemen­cy. LeGrande (pic­tured), who is sched­uled for exe­cu­tion on December 1, has been diag­nosed as psychotic…

U.S. District Judge Benson E. Legg, who has been over­see­ing the chal­lenge to Maryland​’s lethal injec­tion process filed by death row inmate Vernon Evans, has stat­ed that he might direct state cor­rec­tions offi­cials to​“test the recruit­ment waters” in search of doc­tors or high­ly trained nurs­es to par­tic­i­pate in state exe­cu­tions before he rules on whether to require the med­ical pro­fes­sion­als’ involve­ment. The judge has held exten­sive hear­ings over nine days…

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rebuffed President Bush​’s order that Texas courts review the cas­es of Mexican for­eign nation­als who were sen­tenced to death with­out the ben­e­fit of their rights under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. Writing for the court, Judge Michael Keasler, stat­ed:​“We hold that the President has exceed­ed his con­sti­tu­tion­al author­i­ty by intrud­ing into the inde­pen­dent pow­ers of the judi­cia­ry.” Judge Sharon Keller…

Prosecutors in Utah have stat­ed that the sen­tenc­ing option of life with­out parole has been very help­ful in giv­ing jurors and fam­i­ly mem­bers of vic­tims a viable alter­na­tive to the death penal­ty. Salt Lake County District Attorney David Yocom not­ed that life with­out parole is often a bet­ter option to present to jurors:​“It’s a tool for juries as well as pros­e­cu­tors and defense attor­neys, too,” Yocom said.​“It’s an alter­na­tive to avoid ask­ing a jury of 12 peo­ple to make…

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld California’s death penal­ty law in a 5 – 4 deci­sion on Nov. 13 in Ayers v. Belmontes. The major­i­ty held that the state’s law allowed the jury to con­sid­er all appro­pri­ate mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence. The deci­sion reversed the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9^th Circuit, which had over­turned Belmontes death sen­tence. The dis­sent, con­sist­ing of Justices Stephens, Breyer, Ginsburg and Souter, how­ev­er, dis­agreed, con­tend­ing that the jury…

Federal District Court Judge Jeremy Fogel is expect­ed to rule soon on a chal­lenge to the lethal injec­tion process in California, the state with the largest death row in the coun­try. Extensive hear­ings with nation­al experts were con­duct­ed ear­li­er in the year and some tes­ti­mo­ny raised seri­ous con­cerns about the super­vi­sion and reli­a­bil­i­ty of the exe­cu­tion process. Final respons­es to Judge Fogel’s sup­ple­men­tary ques­tions after the close of the hear­ings were due on…