Publications & Testimony

Judge Carolyn Dineen King of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit was the main speak­er at the​“Red Mass” on October 4 at the Catholic cathe­dral in Corpus Christi, Texas. The Red Mass is an annu­al litur­gy held for mem­bers of the legal pro­fes­sion near the begin­ning of the judi­cial term. Its tra­di­tions extend back to 13^th cen­tu­ry Europe. Judge King spoke about the death penal­ty, both from her per­spec­tive as a judge and as a Catholic. In both areas, she raised strong…

A recent law review arti­cle by Prof. Michael Mannheimer of the Salmon P. Chase College of Law argues that the fed­er­al penal­ty may vio­late the Eighth Amendment’s pro­scrip­tion against cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ments when it is used in states that do not have the death penal­ty. Prof. Mannheimer explores the strain of the Eighth Amendment’s his­to­ry that is specif­i­cal­ly con­cerned with lim­it­ing the fed­er­al gov­ern­men­t’s pow­er to inter­fere with the norms of individual…

Dennis Counterman was freed from a Pennsylvania court­room on October 18, 2006 after serv­ing many years on the state’s death row. Counterman had been con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in 1990 for alleged­ly set­ting a fire in his own house that result­ed in the death of his three chil­dren. That con­vic­tion was over­turned in 2001 because pros­e­cu­tors had with­held evi­dence from the defense indi­cat­ing that the old­est child had a his­to­ry of fire-set­t­ing. At…

The Morning CallBy Debbie GarlickiOctober 19, 2006 The plea: Entered an Alford plea to three counts of third-degree…

In a recent speech to law stu­dents from Furman University, William W. Wilkins, the Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, expressed doubts about the val­ue of the death penal­ty giv­en its high costs and prob­a­ble lack of deter­rence. He also not­ed that the exis­tence of the death penal­ty in the U.S. makes it very dif­fi­cult to extra­dite sus­pects from for­eign coun­tries who oppose cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment.With respect to the extra costs…

The Common Sense Foundation of North Carolina released a study on October 11, 2006 that found that at least 37 peo­ple now on death row had tri­al lawyers who would not have met today’s min­i­mum stan­dards of qual­i­fi­ca­tion. Nearly a third of the cas­es where suf­fi­cient data was avail­able fell into this substandard…

On October 13, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear two cap­i­tal cas­es from Texas in which the defen­dant was sen­tenced to death after the jury was giv­en instruc­tions that the Court has since found uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. Unlike in most states where the jury con­sid­ers a range of aggra­vat­ing and mit­i­gat­ing cir­cum­stances about the crime and the defen­dant before choos­ing a sen­tence of life or death, in Texas the jury was (the law has since been mod­i­fied) giv­en a series…

A broad spec­trum of reli­gious lead­ers from Wisconsin issued a joint state­ment regard­ing their views on the death penal­ty on October 14. The statement…

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal from Texas death row inmate LaRoyce Smith even though they had reviewed his case once before. On October 6, 2006, the Court grant­ed cer­tio­rari to decide whether the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals had applied the wrong stan­dard after the Supreme Court had sent Smith’s case back to them ear­li­er. The dis­pute does not involve Smith’s 1991 con­vic­tion for the mur­der of a Taco Bell man­ag­er in Dallas. Rather the Supreme Court…

Edward Johnson is a for­mer FBI Agent who cur­rent­ly over­sees inves­tiga­tive work for the Union County (NJ) Prosecutor’s Office. He recent­ly expressed his per­son­al opin­ions about the state’s death penal­ty. He con­clud­ed that in New Jersey pub­lic opin­ion may now have moved to the point where the death penal­ty will be abol­ished. He…