Publications & Testimony

The July 2007 issue of Scientific American magazine contains both an article discussing the medical implications of lethal injection and an editorial discussing the humaneness of capital punishment generally. The editorial suggests that capital punishment “can never be anything but inhumane,” and offers the opinion that it is “wrong” and an “outrage.” But it further states that even those who believe the death penalty is acceptable, should agree that it not be carried out cruelly. The editorial…

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on June 28, 2007, that Scott Panetti, a man with severe mental illness on Texas’s death row, deserves a rehearing on his claim of mental incompetence. The Court’s 5 – 4 ruling overturned a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit that had used an overly restrictive definition of what constitutes insanity. The lower court had held that mere knowledge of one’s crime, without a rational understanding, was sufficient to allow an execution to go forward.

The federal death penalty impacts racial minorities differently than it does whites according to a recent report from the American Civil Liberties Union. The report, The Persistent Problem of Racial Disparities in the Federal Death Penalty, notes that defendants of color make up the majority of the federal death row. And the risk of a case being authorized for the death penalty is 84% higher in cases where the victim is white, regardless of the race of the defendant. The report pointed to…

On June 25, 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to review a capital case from Louisiana in which an all-white jury sentenced a defendant to death after the prosecutor urged a death sentence so that the defendant would not “get away with it” like O.J. Simpson. All five qualified African-Americans had been struck from the jury pool by the prosecution using peremptory challenges. The defense has challenged the selection of the jury as a violation of equal protection. The defendant, Allen Snyder…

Dissenting from a U.S. Court of Appeals decision denying relief to Gary Cone, Judge Merritt sharply criticized the Tennessee Attorney General for “falsification” of the record, and he referred to the state’s judicial system as “broken” and “inattentive.” Cone had been granted relief on two other occasions by the same Sixth Circuit, but those decisions were reversed by the U.S. Supreme Court. In the present case, Cone claimed that significant mitigating evidence had been withheld by the state in…

In the third edition of what some have called “the first true textbook on the death penalty,” author Robert Bohm, a correctional officer turned college professor, engages the reader with a full account of the arguments and issues surrounding capital punishment. His book, “DeathQuest III: An Introduction to the Theory & Practice of Capital Punishment in the United States,” begins with the history of the death penalty from colonial to modern times, and then examines the moral and legal arguments…

A recent study conducted by the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) has revealed that Texas is almost last among states in spending on mental health services and performs poorly in other mental health areas. According to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas ranked 47^th in the nation in per-capita spending on mental health services, and received a grade of “D” for information access and a grade of “C” overall. Robin Peyson, NAMI-Texas executive director, observed that one of the main…

In his new book, “The Big Eddy Club: The Stocking Stranglings and Southern Justice,” author David Rose examines issues of race and the death penalty. The book relates the story of Carlton Gary, who was convicted of capital murder in 1986 and remains on Georgia’s death row for the rape and murder of several elderly women in Columbus, Georgia. Rose, a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, links Gary’s conviction to a history of bias in Columbus and the South. “The Big Eddy Club” details the…