Publications & Testimony

During its first pub­lic hear­ing on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, the New Jersey Death Penalty Study Commission heard tes­ti­mo­ny from wit­ness­es rep­re­sent­ing a broad spec­trum of opin­ions. Almost all those tes­ti­fy­ing spoke against retain­ing the death penal­ty. Among those who tes­ti­fied before the 13-mem­ber pan­el were legal experts, reli­gious lead­ers, mur­der vic­tims’ fam­i­ly mem­bers, and exonerees such as Larry Peterson, who spent 18 years in a New Jersey prison for a rape and…

Based on taped con­ver­sa­tions among mem­bers of the Bexar County pros­e­cu­tor’s office, some par­tic­i­pants in the inves­ti­ga­tion of the case of Ruben Cantu may have made up their minds before talk­ing to those who now assert that Cantu was inno­cent. Cantu was exe­cut­ed in Texas in 1993. Significant evi­dence has emerged from a vic­­tim-wit­­ness and from a co-defen­­dant that Texas may have exe­cut­ed the wrong man. The senior District Attorney, Mike Beers, said on tape, before…

In a recent University of Wisconsin Badger Poll, more respon­dents favored a sen­tence of life with­out parole rather than the death penal­ty. Only 45% sup­port­ed cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, while 50% favored life sen­tences. When asked about the death penal­ty in the­o­ry, with­out any alter­na­tive sen­tences men­tioned, 55.6% of Wisconsinites polled favored cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment for​“cas­es involv­ing a per­son who is con­vict­ed of first degree inten­tion­al homi­cides, if the conviction…

New Jersey Death Penalty Study Commission: Testimony of Richard C. Dieter (July…

Both the American Medical Association (AMA) and the National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians (NAEMT) recent­ly issued pub­lic state­ments remind­ing mem­bers of their eth­i­cal oblig­a­tion not to par­tic­i­pate in legal­ly autho­rized exe­cu­tions. As courts and leg­is­la­tures through­out the coun­try con­tin­ue to strug­gle with ques­tions relat­ed to lethal injec­tion pro­ce­dures, AMA pres­i­dent William G. Plested III not­ed that AMA pol­i­cy clear­ly prohibits medical…

A recent RAND Corporation study of the fed­er­al death penal­ty from 1995 to 2000 found no evi­dence of racial bias. Even though the inves­ti­ga­tors found that the death penal­ty was more often sought against defen­dants who mur­dered white vic­tims, researchers ulti­mate­ly con­clud­ed that the char­ac­ter­is­tics of the crime, and not the racial char­ac­ter­is­tics of the vic­tim or the defen­dant, could be used to make accu­rate pre­dic­tions of whether fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors would seek…

A nine-mem­ber death penal­ty assess­ment team appoint­ed by the American Bar Association​’s (ABA) Death Penalty Moratorium Implementation Project has deter­mined that Arizona​’s cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment laws are plagued with seri­ous prob­lems and that the state should imme­di­ate­ly take steps to improve the fair­ness and accu­ra­cy of the sys­tem. A report issued by the assess­ment team iden­ti­fied sig­nif­i­cant prob­lems, includ­ing the lack of a cen­tral­ized system of…

A recent edi­tion of the Journal of Catholic Legal Studies con­tains arti­cles from a symposium on ​“Catholics and the Death Penalty: Lawyers, Jurors & Judges.” In addi­tion to a fore­word by Amelia Uelmen and an intro­duc­tion to Catholic teach­ing on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment by Art Cody, the vol­ume con­tains a pan­el dis­cus­sion with Kevin Doyle, direc­tor of the New York Capital Defender Office, and Charles Hynes, the District Attorney of Kings County (NY). The symposium…

Five books address­ing reli­gion and its role in cop­ing with vio­lent crime are now avail­able:​“Healing Violent Men: A Model for Christian Communities” — This book by reli­gion pro­fes­sor David Livingston explores domes­tic vio­lence. It offers prac­ti­cal advice for pas­toral and pro­gram­mat­ic efforts to embrace the twin Christian imper­a­tives of for­give­ness and respon­si­b­li­ty. (Fortress Press, 2002).​“When Violence is No Stranger: Pastoral Counseling with Survivors of…

Stuart Streichler served as a law clerk for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11^th Circuit short­ly after the U.S. Supreme Court’s rul­ing in Gregg v. Georgia. He observed many cap­i­tal cas­es and now con­cludes:​“A fun­da­men­tal idea of American law is that all defen­dants should receive fair tri­als all of the time. The per­sis­tent fail­ure to come close to that in death penal­ty cas­es under­mines the integri­ty of the legal sys­tem.” Streichler’s op-ed appreared recently in…