Publications & Testimony

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…

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…