Publications & Testimony

The American Bar Association passed a res­o­lu­tion on August 8 at its annu­al con­fer­ence rec­om­mend­ing that juris­dic­tions refrain from sen­tenc­ing to death or exe­cut­ing indi­vid­u­als with severe men­tal dis­or­ders. Using lan­guage adopt­ed ear­li­er by the American Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric Association, the res­o­lu­tion assert­ed that defen­dants should not be exe­cut­ed or sen­tenced to death if, at the time of the offense, they had ​“sig­nif­i­cant limitations in…

Samuel Flippen is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed on August 18 in North Carolina for the 1994 death of his two-year-old step-daugh­ter, Britnie Hutton. On the day of Britnie’s death, Flippen made emer­gency 911 calls seek­ing med­ical atten­tion for her. There had been no his­to­ry of him pre­vi­ous­ly injur­ing Britnie. Defense attor­neys claim that Flippen’s actions pre­ced­ing Britnie’s death are strong evi­dence that he had no inten­tion of harm­ing his step-daugh­ter. The attor­neys are seek­ing clemen­cy from the…

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit over­turned the death sen­tence of an Ohio man con­vict­ed in a 1995 con­tract killing, stat­ing that the death sen­tence was arbi­trary because oth­er equal­ly cul­pa­ble defen­dants received less­er sen­tences. While three oth­er defen­dants were sen­tenced to life impris­on­ment, only nine­teen-year-old Jason Getsy was sentenced to…

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 this major social…

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 385 nation­wide, accord­ing to data…

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 pan­el, made up of 18…

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 swifter…

Decided: June 26,…

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 actu­al­ly raising the…

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 13 hours before find­ing that Yates…