Publications & Testimony

The Justice Minister of Rwanda, Tharcisse Karugarama, announced that the coun­try will like­ly pass a law by December 2006 end­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. This move would allow Rwanda to try sus­pects charged with atroc­i­ties in the 1994 war who are cur­rent­ly in coun­tries that refuse to extra­dite pris­on­ers if they face the death penal­ty. Karugarama said that abo­li­tion was nec­es­sary in order to achieve a sense of clo­sure. Unless the coun­try abol­ish­es the death penal­ty, coun­tries like Belgium,…

According to a Bureau of Justice Statistics Report released on September 10, vio­lent crime in the United States decreased slight­ly in 2005, con­tin­u­ing a decade-long trend in few­er vic­tim­iza­tions. Comparing two-year peri­ods, vio­lent crime was low­est in the Northeast region of the coun­try in 2004-05, and that region also expe­ri­enced the largest decrease in vio­lent crime from 2002-03 to 2004-05. Since 1993, vio­lent crime has decreased by about 58% in the U.S. The BJS sur­vey of crime…

Two of Texas’s main news­pa­pers have called for an inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tion into the case of Ruben Cantu, who was exe­cut­ed in Texas in 1993. New evi­dence revealed in the Houston Chronicle ear­li­er in the year has thrown con­sid­er­able doubt on the guilt of Cantu. Susan Reed, the District Attorney of Bexar County where Cantu was tried, has refused to step down as head of the coun­ty’s inves­ti­ga­tion, even though, as a judge, she signed Cantu’s death war­rant, an appar­ent con­flict of inter­est. The…

According to a Bureau of Justice Statistics study released September 6, more than half of all prison and jail inmates, includ­ing 56% of state pris­on­ers, 45% of fed­er­al pris­on­ers, and 64% of local jail inmates have men­tal health prob­lems. The study was based on report­ing of symp­toms by inmates rather than through med­ical diag­no­sis. Among state pris­on­ers with men­tal prob­lems, 43% had symp­toms of mania, 23% had major depres­sion, and 15% had psy­chot­ic dis­or­ders. Having mental health…

The death penal­ty is rarely sought in the city of Baltimore, but in adjoin­ing Baltimore County almost every eli­gi­ble case becomes a cap­i­tal case. Presently, there are 7 active death-penal­ty cas­es in Baltimore County, more than the city of Baltimore has had over­all in the past 2 decades. In addi­tion to the dif­fer­ent philoso­phies of the respec­tive State’s Attorneys, the costs of the death penal­ty are a sig­nif­i­cant fac­tor. Prosecutors esti­mate that a death penal­ty case costs tax­pay­ers $500,000,…

There have been 41 exe­cu­tions in 2006 as of September 5. This is a pace com­pa­ra­ble to last year’s, when there were 60 exe­cu­tions. Eighty per­cent of the exe­cu­tions have been in the South, keep­ing with a pat­tern since the death penal­ty was rein­stat­ed in 1976. Almost half of all exe­cu­tions (20 of 41) have been in one state, Texas. Only about 20% of those exe­cut­ed had killed a black vic­tim, even though about half of all mur­der vic­tims in the U.S. are black. This…

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 Texas until September 12, 2006…

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 Native Americans, blacks,…

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 chal­lenges to the…

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, has been…