Publications & Testimony
Items: 5041 — 5050
Oct 05, 2006
Mississippi Death Row Inmate Argues Killing Was In Self-Defense
Corey Maye was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of a police officer in Prentiss, Mississippi, on the day after Christmas in 2001. The police officer was part of a drug raid on a neighbor’s apartment. Maye claims that the police broke into his duplex unannounced and that he fired his gun in defense of himself and his 18-month-old daughter. Mississippi Circuit Court Judge Michael Eubanks recently ruled that Maye was entitled to a new sentencing hearing because his…
Read MoreOct 05, 2006
LETHAL INJECTIONS: Executions in California Carried Out in a Dark and “Chaotic” Atmosphere – Federal Judge Asks for Further Briefing
A Los Angeles Times article on the recent hearings in federal District Court regarding the California’s lethal injection process was entitled“The Chaos Behind California Executions.” Excerpts from the…
Read MoreOct 04, 2006
NEW BOOK: “The Innocent Man” by John Grisham
On October 10th, 2006, John Grisham’s first non-fiction book, The Innocent Man, will be released. The book is the compelling true story of Ron Williamson, a former hometown baseball hero of Ada, Oklahoma, who was convicted in 1988 of raping and murdering Debbie Carter. In 1999, Williamson was exonerated of the crime after serving eleven years on death row. In the context of this case, Grisham addresses many of the fundamental issues that surround the death…
Read MoreOct 02, 2006
BOOKS: “Minding Justice: Laws that Deprive People with Mental Disability of Life and Liberty”
Christopher Slobogin of the University of Florida’s Law School has written a new book about the state’s legal authority to deprive people with mental disabilities of life or liberty. The book discusses a number of well known cases such as that of John Hinckley and Andrea Yates. It also includes discussion of laws dealing with the insanity defense, the death penalty, commitment of sexual predators, and hospitalization of people considered unable to make…
Read MoreOct 02, 2006
The Chaos Behind California Executions
Monday, October 2, 2006The Chaos Behind California ExecutionsTrial testimony paints lethal injection methods as haphazard, with little medical oversight.By Maura Dolan and Henry WeinsteinLos Angeles Times Staff WritersSAN JOSE — “Operational Procedure No. 770,” the state’s name for execution by lethal injection, is performed in a dark, cramped room by men and women who know little, if anything, about the deadly drugs they inject under extreme…
Read MoreSep 28, 2006
REPRESENTATION: Judges Criticize Incompetent Representation in Texas
One attorney’s appeal brief on behalf of a Texas death row inmate was so poorly written that State District Judge Noe Gonzalez of Edinburg wrote that“Applicant totally misinterprets what actually occurred in this case.” A committee of citizens and attorneys filed a complaint about the appellate lawyer with the State Bar of Texas, but nothing was done: the lawyer remains on the state’s list of approved death penalty attorneys, and the client remains on death row. The…
Read MoreSep 27, 2006
Conference to Address Mental Illness and the Death Penalty
The Charlotte School of Law is sponsoring a symposium on “Mental Illness and the Death Penalty: Seeking a‘Reasoned Moral Response’ to an Unavoidable Condition” on October 20, 2006 in Charlotte, North Carolina. The conference will bring together medical experts, judges, defense attorneys, prosecutors, and other experts to discuss whether current law adequately accounts for the role of mental illness in capital cases. Among those scheduled to speak are…
Read MoreSep 27, 2006
NEW VOICES: Former FBI Director Warns Against Stripping Death Penalty Appeals
The former Director of the FBI, William Sessions (pictured), along with Timothy Lewis, a former judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals, called on members of Congress to refrain from barring death row inmates and other defendants from the full access to the federal courts in their appeals. Some legislators have proposed eliminating federal habeas corpus review in many cases, and barring access to the federal courts to many of those raising…
Read MoreSep 26, 2006
RESOURCES: DEATH ROW USA Summer 2006 Now Available
The latest edition of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund’s“Death Row USA” shows that the number of people on the death row in the United States is continuing to decline, falling to 3,366 as of July 1, 2006. The size of death row increased every year between 1976 and 2000, but since then it has been in…
Read MoreSep 26, 2006
RESOURCES: New FBI Report Shows U.S. Murder Rate Unchanged Over 5 Years
The FBI recently released the latest version of its Uniform Crime Reports: Crime in the United States 2005. The report showed that the murder rate in 2005 (5.6 murders per 100,000 people) was the same as in 2001, with little change in the intervening years. Death sentences, executions and the size of death row all declined during this period. As in previous years, the South had the higherst murder rate, 6.6, among the 4 geographical regions. Over 80% of the…
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