Publications & Testimony

Anthony Graves, who was sen­tenced to death in Texas in 1994, may soon be released on bail. Graves’ con­vic­tion was over­turned in March 2006 by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5^th Circuit because pros­e­cu­tors had with­held two pieces of impor­tant evi­dence from Graves’ attor­neys pri­or to his tri­al. One of the main wit­ness­es against Graves, a co-defen­­dant who par­tic­i­pat­ed in the crime, recant­ed his ear­li­er tes­ti­mo­ny. The fed­er­al court has given…

Researcher and for­mer law pro­fes­sor Harriet C. Frazier has pro­duced a thor­ough inves­tiga­tive work on the death penal­ty in Missouri: Death Sentences in Missouri, 1803 – 2005: A History and Comprehensive Registry of Legal Executions, Pardons, and Commutations. Building on the research of Watt Espy, Frazier dis­cov­ered accounts of many addi­tion­al exe­cu­tions in the state, espe­cial­ly in its ear­li­er years. She devotes chap­ters to such impor­tant areas as executions of…

Gov. Mike Rounds of South Dakota stayed the exe­cu­tion of Elijah Page on the day it was to be car­ried out because of con­cerns about the state’s lethal injec­tion process. The gov­er­nor said there was a con­flict between state law requir­ing the use of two drugs, and the antic­i­pat­ed prac­tice of using three drugs in the lethal injec­tion. Such a prac­tice could put state employ­ees at risk of vio­lat­ing the law. Page had waived his appeals, but oth­er inmates had raised…

In a recent edi­to­r­i­al, the Washington Post called atten­tion to the case of Earl Washington, who was wrong­ly con­vict­ed and almost exe­cut­ed in Virginia before being freed fol­low­ing DNA tests. The edi­to­r­i­al notes that even a con­fes­sion is far from defin­i­tive proof that the right per­son has been con­vict­ed. Washington was spared through the clemen­cy process after courts denied his claims. Now a new defen­dant, whose DNA matched evi­dence from the crime scene,…

A new study on the use of the death penal­ty in Trinidad and Tobago has been pub­lished by Roger Hood and Florence Seemungal. The authors close­ly exam­ine pros­e­cu­tions under the coun­try’s manda­to­ry death penal­ty statute, which requires impo­si­tion of a death sen­tence when­ev­er a defen­dant is found guilty of mur­der. The study found that, despite a high num­ber of killings, rel­a­tive­ly few peo­ple were con­vict­ed of mur­der, and not nec­es­sar­i­ly those who com­mit­ted the most…

Justin Fuller was exe­cut­ed in Texas on August 24. He was the 19^th per­son exe­cut­ed this year, equal­ing the total num­ber of peo­ple exe­cut­ed last year in the state. The San Antonio Express-News report­ed that Fuller had been rep­re­sent­ed by an attor­ney who​“filed an appeal with inco­her­ent rep­e­ti­tions, ram­bling argu­ments and lan­guage clear­ly lift­ed from one of his pre­vi­ous cas­es, so that at one point it described the wrong crime.“The appeal filed for Fuller copied…

A sophis­ti­cat­ed sta­tis­ti­cal study of homi­cide cas­es in South Carolina by Professor Isaac Unah of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and attor­ney Michael Songer found that pros­e­cu­tors were more like­ly to seek the death penal­ty when the vic­tim in the under­ly­ing mur­der was white, if the vic­tim was female, and when the crime occurred in a rur­al area of the state. The authors first exam­ined the raw data of homi­cide cas­es in South Carolina over a 5‑year…

As stu­dents return for the start of the school year, DPIC’s award-win­n­ing Educational Curriculum on the Death Penalty is avail­able for teacher and stu­dent use. This free cur­ricu­lum was designed by the Michigan State Communications Technology Laboratory in con­junc­tion with the Death Penalty Information Center. There are sep­a­rate teacher and stu­dent sites, flex­i­ble les­son plans, teacher overviews, dynam­ic maps, and edu­ca­tion­al objectives meeting…

The Prison and the Gallows: The Politics of Mass Incarceration in America is a new book by Marie Gottschalk of the University of Pennsylvania ana­lyz­ing the rea­sons behind the tremen­dous growth in the prison pop­u­la­tion in the United States. The book exam­ines issues of race, the inter­sec­tion of pris­ons with wom­en’s issues, and the con­se­quences of wide­spread incar­cer­a­tion on soci­ety and the econ­o­my. The author delves into the recent his­to­ry of the death…

Ray Krone (pic­tured, cen­ter) was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in 1992 for the mur­der Kim Ancona in Arizona. Krone’s con­vic­tion was even­tu­al­ly over­turned. He was re-tried and again con­vict­ed in 1996. Finally, in 2002, DNA test­ing exclud­ed Krone from the crime and he was freed. Now anoth­er man has plead­ed guilty to the offense. Kenneth Phillips, Jr. was sen­tenced to a term of 53 years to life in prison for the mur­der and sex­u­al assault on August 18, 2006.