Publications & Testimony

A recent op-ed by Theodore Shaw, pres­i­dent and direc­­tor-coun­sel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, urged a full and fair inves­ti­ga­tion into the case of Ruben Cantu, a Texas man who may have been inno­cent of the mur­der for which he was exe­cut­ed in 1993. Shaw not­ed that Cantu’s case was​“fraught with sys­temic errors,” includ­ing the fact that his con­vic­tion was based on a sin­gle eye­wit­ness iden­ti­fi­ca­tion by a man who has said he was pressured…

A recent edi­to­r­i­al in the La Crosse Tribune urged Wisconsin leg­is­la­tors to main­tain the state’s ban on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. The edi­to­r­i­al dis­cour­aged the state from rein­stat­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment because it does not deter crime and is often unfair­ly applied, stat­ing that there is no need to bring back the death penal­ty because the state already has the sen­tence of life with­out parole. Legislators recent­ly vot­ed to hold a non-bind­ing ref­er­en­dum on restoring…

Katherine Norgard’s recent book, ​“Hard to Place: A Crime of Alcohol,” is a per­son­al account of the trau­ma expe­ri­enced by her fam­i­ly when her adopt­ed son is charged with a cap­i­tal crime. The book is the author’s sto­ry of fight­ing to save her son after he was sen­tenced to death for the 1989 mur­der of an elder­ly cou­ple in Tuscon, Arizona. At the time of his tri­al, she still did not know that her son, John Eastlack, had been born with fetal alco­hol syn­drome, despite his…

U.S. District Judge Kenneth Hoyt over­turned the cap­i­tal con­vic­tion of Carl Wayne Buntion, not­ing that the Texas tri­al judge who sen­tenced him to death had a​“deep-seat­ed and vocal bias” against Buntion. In a 61-page opin­ion, Hoyt stat­ed that state District Judge Bill Harmon deprived Buntion of his con­sti­tu­tion­al right to a fair tri­al by bul­ly­ing his attor­neys, meet­ing pri­vate­ly with pros­e­cu­tors and defer­ring to their wish­es, and mak­ing remarks in court such as…

On May 2, 2006, the exe­cu­tion of Joseph Clark in Ohio was delayed 90 min­utes because the exe­cu­tion team was unable to find a suit­able vein to deliv­er the lethal chem­i­cals. After the team tried repeat­ed­ly to find a vein, Clark called out,​“It’s not work­ing, it’s not work­ing.” The guards closed the cur­tains to block wit­ness­es from view­ing the exe­cu­tion cham­ber. Witnesses then heard Clark moan­ing and groan­ing from behind the cur­tain. The cur­tain lat­er reopened after the…

Amnesty International’s most recent death penalty report, ​“The Death Penalty Worldwide: Developments in 2005,” revealed a sub­stan­tial drop in record­ed exe­cu­tions around the world, as well as a grow­ing num­ber of nations that have aban­doned the death penal­ty. According to the report, four nations account­ed for 94% of the 2,148 record­ed exe­cu­tions car­ried out around the world in 2005, a total that is sig­nif­i­cant­ly less than the 3,797 exe­cu­tions recorded in…

The May 8^th edi­tion of U.S. News & World Report high­lights the declin­ing num­ber of death sen­tences hand­ed down each year in the U.S., the small­er num­ber of exe­cu­tions, and the grow­ing num­ber of states that are re-eval­u­at­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Public sup­port for the death penal­ty has also decreased because of doubts about the accu­ra­cy and fairnes of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. The arti­cle notes that New Jersey recent­ly estab­lished a mora­to­ri­um on executions and…

A fed­er­al jury vot­ed today that Zacarias Moussaoui should serve a sen­tence of life in prison with­out parole despite the gov­ern­men­t’s asser­tion that his lies to FBI offi­cials con­tributed to the ter­ror­ist attacks of September 11, 2001. Earlier the jury had found that Moussaoui was respon­si­ble for some of the deaths that took place on September 11, and that he was eli­gi­ble for the death penal­ty. After weeks of tes­ti­mo­ny dur­ing the sen­tenc­ing phase of the tri­al, the jury…

A report com­piled by five of the nation’s top arson experts has con­clud­ed that Texas exe­cut­ed a man based on faulty sci­ence and unre­li­able evi­dence. Cameron Todd Willingham was exe­cut­ed in Texas in 2004 for a crime of arson in which his 3 chil­dren died. Based on inde­pen­dent reviews of the evi­dence used to con­vict Willingham, the experts called for a re-inves­ti­­ga­­tion of the case after find­ing that it was based on inter­pre­ta­tions by fire inves­ti­ga­tors that have been…

Ronald George (pic­tured), Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court, recent­ly called the state’s death penal­ty​“dys­func­tion­al” and crit­i­cized state law­mak­ers for their unwill­ing­ness to ade­quate­ly fund the state’s cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem. The Justice not­ed that this refusal has been​“a dis­ser­vice to the admin­is­tra­tion of jus­tice.” George added,​“I think that there are many, many things in the eyes of leg­is­la­tors that have greater pri­or­i­ty. That’s the…