Publications & Testimony

Passed a bill in July 2002, exempting the mentally retarded from the death penalty in which retardation, described as “significantly subaverage general intellectual functioning,” will be determined before the trial. For more information regarding this legislation, Click Here. On January 24, 2001, (SJR 3) a Joint Resolution, sponsored by Sen. Simpson, was submitted by the Delaware State Senate and the House of Representatives to establish an independent, non-partisan Commission on the Death…

Connecticut Lags Behind in Death Penalty Reforms The Chair of Connecticut’s Judiciary Committee has called for enactment of death penalty reforms to protect against wrongful convictions. Of the six reforms recommended after a 13-month special commission on Connecticut’s death penalty, only one has been enacted. Members of the commission noted, “Experiences in other states throughout the country suggest that Connecticut cannot be complacent and ‘best practices’ should be the watchword.” Among…

Colorado House Committee Advances Bill to Abolish Capital Punishment The 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…

Court Rules California’s New Lethal Injection Procedures are Invalid Superior Court Judge Lynn O’Malley Taylor held that the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation failed to follow proper procedure for instituting new regulations when it issued new lethal injection protocols in May. Under state law, an agency that adopts new regulations must first publish the text, invite public comments, hold a hearing if a member of the public requests one, and submit the final draft to the…

In April 2001, Governor Huckabee signed a law providing for Defense Counsel Standards and DNA testing.

After the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Arizona’s death penalty statute in Ring v. Arizona, the state legislature met in a special session to amend the state’s death penalty law to provide that jurors, not judges, impose death sentences. The bill passed and was signed by Governor Jane Hull. (Tucson Citizen, editorial, August 6, 2002) In April 2001, Governor Jane Hull signed a law banning the execution of those with mental retardation. The legislation sets general guidelines for a judge to…

On May 20, 2001, Governor Siegelman signed a law creating the Committee on Compensation for Wrongful Incarceration allowing reparations to be made in the event that an innocent person is convicted and imprisoned erroneously.

On Tuesday, Dec. 4, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in Snyder v. Louisiana, a case involving a black defendant sentenced to death by an all-white jury after the prosecution used its peremptory strikes to exclude all of the qualified black jurors. During Allen Snyder’s 1996 trial for the murder of a man his estranged wife was dating, prosecutor James Williams of Jefferson Parish urged the all-white jury to sentence the defendant to death so that Snyder would not “get away with it”…

In a recent op-ed in the New Jersey Daily Record, Jim O’Brien detailed his experiences with the legal system as the father of a murder victim. His daughter Deidre was murdered in 1982, and the capital trials and appeals for the man convicted of the crime lasted another 8 years. O’Brien stated, “I’ve lived through the state’s process of trying to kill [a murderer], and I can say without hesitation that it is not worth the anguish that it puts survivors through….” Because of the “horrendous toll”…

If current trends continue, New York City will likely have fewer than 500 homicides this year, the lowest number in a 12-month period since reliable NYC Police Department statistics became available in 1963. As of November 18, 2007, the police department logged 428 killings, the majority of which were committed by friends or acquaintances or were drug or gang-related. In fact, only 35 homicides this year were committed by strangers to the victims, a number described as “microscopic” in a city…