Publications & Testimony

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 exe­cu­tion team managed to…

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 2004 (how­ev­er, in many…

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 New York opt­ed not to restore its…

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 took 7 days to recommend…

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 sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly dis­poved. The…

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 alter­na­tive the­o­ry of a…

“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 a Professor of Justice,…

“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 a black defen­dant is per­ceived to have a stereo­typ­i­cal­ly black appear­ance. Using…

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. Both inmates had come within…