Publications & Testimony

Argued: April 18, 2007 Decided: June 28, 2007 In 1986, the Supreme Court held in Ford v. Wainwright that it is unconstitutional to execute an inmate who is presently insane. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5^th Circuit ruled that Scott Panetti, who was allowed to defend himself in his Texas trial despite his schizophrenia and 14 stints in mental hospitals, and who said the devil compelled his actions, was aware that he committed a crime and that he was to be punished and that was sufficient…

On August 30, Texas has scheduled the execution of Kenneth Foster Jr. (pictured), despite the fact that all parties agree that Foster did not personally kill anyone. Foster was sentenced to death under the Texas Law of Parties that permits a person involved in a crime to be held accountable for the actions committed by someone else. In this case, Texas maintains that Foster deserves the death penalty because he “should have anticipated” that a passenger in his vehicle would exit the car with a…

Billy Hill spent seven years as a district attorney in Shelby, Coosa, and Clay counties in Alabama, and has reconsidered his stance on capital punishment. Mr. Hill says that he would welcome a moratorium on executions in Alabama while a study commission examines the state’s death penalty to evaluate whether it is “a wise and humane use of our resources.” Wrongful convictions, the arbitrary nature of capital punishment, poor representation, and the long-term suffering of victims’ family members…

“Dead Innocent: The Death Penalty Abolitionist Search for a Wrongful Execution” by Professor Jeffrey L. Kirchmeier was recently published in the Tulsa Law Review. The article examines the potential impact that the confirmed execution of an innocent person would have on the U.S. death penalty debate. The author states that identifying those who have been wrongly convicted and later freed — as well as individuals who may have been innocent and executed — provides clear reason for lawmakers and…

Judge Boyce F. Martin, Jr. (pictured) of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6^th Circuit called the death penalty “arbitrary, biased, and so fundamentally flawed at its very core that it is beyond repair.” Judge Martin dissented in the case of Getsy v. Mitchell and said it made no sense that Jason Getsy received a death sentence for his role in a murder-for-hire conspiracy, while the other two triggermen and the mastermind of the crime, all escaped a death sentence. He wrote: In Jason Getsy’s…

A federal judge ordered the U.S. government to pay a record $102 million for the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s role in the wrongful murder convictions of four men in 1968, including one man who was sentenced to death. U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner said the FBI’s conduct was “shocking” and characterized the government’s explanation for the events leading to the wrongful convictions of Louis Greco, Henry Tameleo, Peter Limone and Joseph Salvati as “absurd.” She wrote, “Now is the time to…

In continuing a series that DPIC had highlighted earlier, the Denver Post has featured more than a dozen news articles and a series of online videos, providing an in-depth look at the handling of crucial biological evidence gathered during criminal investigations. “Trashing the Truth: The Hidden Story of Lost Evidence” examined the nationwide problems with evidence storage, the destruction of evidence, and the relationship between missing evidence and wrongful convictions. It also addressed how…

An updated version of the “Espy File,” a database of executions in the United States and the earlier colonies from 1608 to 2002, is now available on DPIC’s Web site. This resource provides detailed information about each of the 15,269 executions recorded during this period and offers a unique glimpse into the history of the death penalty in the U.S. For example, about 15% of those executed received the death penalty for crimes other than murder, including 277 who were executed for slave revolt…

Judge Carven Angel of Florida’s Circuit Court has ordered a halt to executions because of concerns that the state’s new lethal injection protocols do not adequately address problems exposed in the state’s last execution. The new protocols were created after Florida’s botched execution of Angel Diaz in December 2006. The execution took more than 30 minutes after two tries, and then-governor Jeb Bush ordered a review of the process. Judge Angel’s oral order to stop executions came on Sunday, July…

A recent four-part series in the Denver Post about evidence in criminal cases detailed how police departments across the U.S. store and dispose of crucial biological evidence. The Post examined 10 states in which authorities destroyed biological evidence in nearly 6,000 rape and murder cases during the past decade. The investigation also revealed that over the past 30 years, destruction of DNA evidence in 28 states has undermined efforts by at least 141 prisoners to prove their innocence. Of…