Publications & Testimony

Items: 5171 — 5180


May 02, 2006

Supreme Court Unanimously Rules Death Row Inmate Deprived of a Fair Trial

The U.S. Supreme Court, with Justice Samuel Alito writ­ing his first opin­ion, unan­i­mous­ly ruled on May 1 that South Carolina had deprived Bobbie Lee Holmes of a fair tri­al when it pre­vent­ed him from putting on evi­dence con­tra­dic­to­ry to the state’s case and that point­ed to anoth­er pos­si­ble sus­pect. South Carolina’s rule was that if the state had put on strong foren­sic evi­dence of the defen­dan­t’s guilt, the defen­dant could be pro­hib­it­ed from raising an…

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Apr 28, 2006

BOOKS: Stories about Executions

A Meal to Die For” is a short sto­ry by Professor Robert Johnson exam­in­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment through the eyes of a man approach­ing his exe­cu­tion. The sto­ry is part of The Crying Wall and Other Prison Stories, a larg­er col­lec­tion of short sto­ries by a vari­ety of authors. In​“A Meal to Die For,” Johnson weaves the death row pris­on­er’s last meal with the grad­ual process of lethal injec­tion, result­ing in a painful death. Robert Johnson is…

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Apr 28, 2006

New Research Examines Racial Stereotypes and the Death Penalty

Looking Deathworthy: Perceived Stereotypicality of Black Defendants Predicts Capital-Sentencing Outcomes” con­tains new research on race con­duct­ed by pro­fes­sors from Stanford, UCLA, Yale and Cornell, led by Prof. Jennifer Eberhardt. The arti­cle, to be pub­lished in the May 2006 edi­tion of Psychological Science, exam­ines whether the like­li­hood of being sen­tenced to death is influ­enced by the degree to which…

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Apr 28, 2006

LETHAL INJECTIONS: Hearings in California and Missouri Delayed by Federal Courts

Two of the lead­ing cas­es chal­leng­ing the lethal injec­tion process as a civ­il rights vio­la­tion were sig­nif­i­cant­ly delayed to allow the par­ties more time to gath­er infor­ma­tion. In California, the fed­er­al District Court over­see­ing the case of Michael Morales post­poned the sched­uled May 2 hear­ing until September 19, 2006. In Missouri, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit grant­ed a 60-day exten­sion for dis­cov­ery and a hear­ing in the case of Michael Taylor.

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Apr 27, 2006

Texas Death Row Inmate To Be Forcibly Medicated For Execution

On April 11, Texas Judge Wayne Salvant ruled that death row inmate Steven Kenneth Staley could be phys­i­cal­ly forced to take anti-psy­­chot­ic med­ica­tion that could ren­der him com­pe­tent enough to be exe­cut­ed. The deci­sion came near­ly two months after the judge stopped Staley’s sched­uled exe­cu­tion fol­low­ing tes­ti­mo­ny from two doc­tors who stat­ed that Staley suf­fers from para­noid schiz­o­phre­nia and is too men­tal­ly ill to be exe­cut­ed. The law requires that Staley be…

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Apr 27, 2006

Human Rights Watch Report on Lethal Injection

A new report issued by Human Rights Watch notes that most U.S. states use exe­cu­tion meth­ods that need­less­ly risk excru­ci­at­ing pain for inmates sub­ject­ed to lethal injec­tions. The report exam­ines the his­to­ry of lethal injec­tions and the wide­spread use of pro­to­cols that were cre­at­ed three decades ago with no sci­en­tif­ic research.Excerpts from the report: Although sup­port­ers of lethal injec­tion believe the pris­on­er dies pain­less­ly, there is mounting…

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Apr 27, 2006

DETERRENCE: Nevada Executions – 11 out 12 Preferred Execution over Appeals

Daryl Mack, who repeat­ed­ly not­ed that he would rather be exe­cut­ed than spend the next 20 years of his life on death row pur­su­ing legal appeals, was exe­cut­ed Wednesday for a 1988 mur­der in Reno. Mack was con­vict­ed in 2002. He was the 12th per­son exe­cut­ed in Nevada since cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment was rein­stat­ed in 1977, and the 11th to waive remain­ing appeals at the time of exe­cu­tion. He was the first black man to be exe­cut­ed in the Nevada since exe­cu­tions resumed in…

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Apr 26, 2006

Harvard Conference Explores Race and the Death Penalty

A May 2006 con­fer­ence held at the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard Law School exam­ined new research, legal defense, and pub­lic response to the issue of race and the death penal­ty. The conference, ​“From Lynch Mobs to the Killing State: A National Conference on Race and the Death Penalty,” fea­tured a num­ber of nation­al aca­d­e­m­ic and legal…

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Apr 26, 2006

Juries Choosing Death Penalty Less Often in Federal Cases

The per­cent­age of fed­er­al death penal­ty cas­es result­ing in death sen­tences has declined from the 1990s to the present. Since 1991, juries chose a death sen­tence in 51 cas­es com­pared with 93 cas­es that end­ed with a sen­tence of life in prison, accord­ing to Federal Death Penalty Resource Counsel, a rate of 35% for death sen­tences. Since 2000, juries have returned 29 death sen­tences and 69 life sen­tences, a rate…

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Apr 25, 2006

United Methodist Church Marks 50th Anniversary of Stance Against Death Penalty

Marking the 50th anniver­sary of the United Methodist Church’s pub­lic call for an end to the death penal­ty, the church’s General Board of Church and Society recent­ly issued a state­ment echo­ing the sen­ti­ments of the church’s orig­i­nal call for abo­li­tion and urg­ing all United Methodists​“to prac­tice trans­for­ma­tive love, to com­fort the vic­tims of crime, to human­ize those con­vict­ed of crime, and to advo­cate for an end to the death penal­ty in our criminal justice…

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