Publications & Testimony

The stage play of Tim Robbins’ Academy Award win­ning film, Dead Man Walking, is avail­able to col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties across the coun­try. The play is based on the acclaimed book of the same title by Sister Helen Prejean. Through the Dead Man Walking School Theatre Project, the play pro­vides an oppor­tu­ni­ty to broad­en dis­cus­sion about the death penal­ty and involve schools and their local com­mu­ni­ties in an inter-dis­­­ci­­pli­­nary dialogue about…

Although New York’s death penal­ty was over­turned by the state’s high court in 2004, and the leg­is­la­ture has not rein­stat­ed it, the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment has sought the death penal­ty more in New York than in any oth­er state except Virginia. However, none of the fed­er­al cas­es has result­ed in a death sen­tence. Since the fed­er­al death penal­ty was rein­stat­ed in 1988, thir­­ty-sev­en fed­er­al cap­i­tal cas­es have been autho­rized in New York, com­pared with 50 in Virginia and…

Citing the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, a United Nations pan­el rec­om­mend­ed that the United States impose a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions. The report, issued on July 28 by the U.N. Human Rights Committee, stat­ed the pan­el was​“con­cerned by stud­ies accord­ing to which the death penal­ty may be imposed dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly on eth­nic minori­ties as well as on low-income groups, a prob­lem which does not seem to be ful­ly acknowl­edged.” The…

In a recent edi­to­r­i­al, the Delaware News Journal con­clud­ed that the uncer­tain­ties and delays of the death penal­ty favor end­ing the sys­tem and replac­ing it with a sen­tence of life with­out parole. Such a sys­tem would bet­ter serve vic­tims and their fam­i­lies, and bring…

Decided: June…

An arti­cle in the July Scientific American exam­ines the extent to which the tele­vi­sion pro­gram​“C.S.I.” and sim­i­lar foren­si­­cal­­ly-focused pro­grams have increased the expec­ta­tions of jurors in crim­i­nal tri­als. The arti­cle quotes University of California, Irvine, researchers Simon Cole and Rachel Dioso ques­tion­ing the real impact of such pro­grams:​“That tele­vi­sion might have an effect on court­rooms is not implau­si­ble… but to argue that​‘C.S.I.’ and sim­i­lar shows are…

Four years after Andrea Yates faced the death penal­ty for the drown­ing deaths of her chil­dren, a sec­ond jury found her not guilty by rea­son of insan­i­ty. In Yates’ first cap­i­tal mur­der tri­al in 2002, jurors con­vict­ed her of mur­der and rec­om­mend­ed a sen­tence of life in prison. That con­vic­tion was over­turned on appeal last year after it was shown that the state’s psy­chi­atric wit­ness pre­sent­ed false tes­ti­mo­ny. In the sec­ond tri­al, jurors deliberated for…

The California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice has unan­i­mous­ly rec­om­mend­ed that state law­mak­ers require elec­tron­ic record­ing of all jail­house inter­ro­ga­tions. The com­mis­sion added that the law should include a pro­vi­sion stat­ing that if an offi­cer fails to record an inter­ro­ga­tion, jurors would be instruct­ed to view the defen­dan­t’s state­ment with cau­tion. Emphasizing that false con­fes­sions have been iden­ti­fied as the second most…

Delaware is the most recent state to have its exe­cu­tions halt­ed while courts exam­ine whether the state’s lethal injec­tion pro­ce­dures are cru­el and unusu­al. Similar con­sti­tu­tion­al chal­lenges have effec­tive­ly put exe­cu­tions on hold in California, New Jersey, Florida, and Missouri. In a meet­ing with Delaware offi­cials, Chief District Judge Sue L. Robinson ordered the state to respond to a law­suit filed by Robert W. Jackson, whose sched­uled May 19 exe­cu­tion was stayed so…

“Legal Executions in California: A Comprehensive Registry, 1851 – 2005,” by researchers Sheila O’Hare, Irene Berry, and Jesse Silva, pro­vides com­pre­hen­sive infor­ma­tion on legal exe­cu­tions in California from 1851 to the present. Starting with the year the Criminal Practices Act first autho­rized exe­cu­tions in the state, the book’s entries are orga­nized by year of exe­cu­tion and con­tain the felon’s name, race, age at death and a detailed nar­ra­tive of the crime that resulted in…