Publications & Testimony

Jeffrey Deskovic had been con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to life in prison in 1990 for the rape and mur­der of a high school class­mate in New York. He was freed from prison on September 20 after DNA evi­dence from the crime was matched with anoth­er man who also con­fessed to the mur­der. The oth­er man was already in prison for a mur­der in the same coun­ty. The DNA evi­dence that did not match Deskovic was pre­sent­ed at his orig­i­nal tri­al. However, Deskovic had con­fessed to the crime to the police after six…

The U.S. Supreme Court denied a stay of exe­cu­tion to Clarence Hill who is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed at 6 pm on September 20 in Florida. Four Justices would have grant­ed the stay. Hill had raised a civ­il rights chal­lenge to Florida’s lethal injec­tion law after the Supreme Court unan­i­mous­ly ruled in June in his favor that such a chal­lenge was prop­er. However, the low­er courts stat­ed that his claim was filed too late and they denied him an evi­den­tiary hear­ing on the mer­its of his…

As the New Jersey Death Penalty Study Commission con­tin­ued its review of the state’s law, the Asbury Park Press called for replac­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment with the sen­tence of life with­out parole. This would bet­ter serve the fam­i­lies of vic­tims, accord­ing to the edi­to­r­i­al, because the death penal­ty caus­es years of uncer­tain­ty with lit­tle prospect that the sen­tence will be car­ried out. The edi­to­r­i­al stat­ed:Reasons to drop death penal­ty Posted by the Asbury Park Press on…

An eight-mem­ber pan­el con­vened by the American Bar Association and con­sist­ing of pros­e­cu­tors, defense lawyers, and judges con­clud­ed a two-year study of Florida​’s death penal­ty sys­tem. The pan­el unan­i­mous­ly pro­posed exten­sive changes to improve the accu­ra­cy and fair­ness of the state’s sys­tem. ​“Despite the best efforts of many leg­is­la­tors, judges and lawyers, much more needs to be done to ensure that Florida’s death penal­ty sys­tem avoids exe­cut­ing the inno­cent,” said…

Chief Judge William Wilkins of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4^th Circuit recent­ly spoke about the death penal­ty to a gath­er­ing at the Charleston School of Law in South Carolina. He com­ment­ed that deci­sion-mak­ers will have to eval­u­ate whether the pun­ish­ment is worth its increas­ing finan­cial costs. But he also not­ed how dif­fi­cult it is for a politi­cian to speak open­ly about this issue: ​“I think polit­i­cal­ly, you’re not going to find a can­di­date run­ning on ​‘Let’s do away with the death…

“Reflective Glass” is a new book by death row inmate G. Wilford Hathorn. The book is a col­lec­tion of fif­teen essays that deal with life on Texas’ death row from a pris­on­er’s per­spec­tive. The essays describe many aspects of death row life: the pain of los­ing friends through exe­cu­tion, the med­ical treat­ment of pris­on­ers, the monot­o­ny of liv­ing in a tiny cell, and the interaction with…

DPIC’s Lethal Injection Page ​“Volunteers” and the Need for Court Review A sen­tenc­ing that ​“shocks the con­science” A recent deci­sion by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9^th Circuit under­scored the respon­si­bil­i­ty that all courts, and par­tic­u­lar­ly the fed­er­al courts, have in ensur­ing that con­sti­tu­tion­al principles are…

The New School in New York City is spon­sor­ing a research con­fer­ence enti­tled ​“Punishment: The U.S. Record” to be held November 30 and December 1, 2006. The con­fer­ence will cov­er all aspects of impris­on­ment and pun­ish­ment in the U.S., but some speak­ers will focus on the death penal­ty. In par­tic­u­lar, John Donohue III will exam­ine recent deter­rence stud­ies and David Garland will dis­cuss the func­tion that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment serves in soci­ety. Other speak­ers at the conference include…

A fed­er­al District Court judge ruled that Missouri​’s pro­posed changes to its lethal injec­tion process still do not meet the con­sti­tu­tion­al requirments under the Eighth Amendment. Judge Fernando Gaitan ruled on September 12 that Missouri may use a doc­tor in good stand­ing to pre­side over exe­cu­tions rather than requir­ing a board-cer­ti­fied anes­the­si­ol­o­gist, as he first ordered in the case of Michael Taylor. However, oth­er aspects of Missouri’s new pro­to­col still do not sufficiently protect…

Back From The Dead: One woman’s search for the men who walked off America’s death row is the sto­ry of 589 for­mer death row inmates who, through a lot­tery of fate, were giv­en a sec­ond chance at life in 1972 when the death penal­ty was abol­ished. Joan Cheever, a for­mer edi­tor of the National Law Journal, who also rep­re­sent­ed a death row inmate in Texas, trav­eled the coun­try inter­view­ing inmates who had been con­demned to death but whose sen­tences were reduced to life when the U.S.