Publications & Testimony

North Carolina’s legislature recently took an important step toward becoming the nation’s second state to pass a Racial Justice Act, legislation that gives defendants the opportunity to challenge the death penalty based on studies showing racial bias. The bill was quickly approved by members of the House Judiciary II Committee and will now go before the full House for consideration. The legislation is similar to legislation enacted in Kentucky in 1998 and, according to the NAACP, it targets the…

U.S. District Judge S. James Otero recently halted the penalty phase of a federal capital case in Los Angeles and told prosecutors that he believes the U.S. Justice Department should reconsider its decision to seek the death penalty for Petro “Peter” Krylov. Krylov is facing the death penalty for his role in a kidnapping and murder plot. Otero, the second federal judge this year to urge federal prosecutors and the Justice Department to rethink their decision to seek a death sentence, told…

The Tennessee House Judiciary Committee unanimously approved a bill that would establish a commission to thoroughly review the state’s death penalty system and provide lawmakers with reform recommendations that address any problems identified by members of the commission. The commission would consist of representatives appointed by Governor Phil Bredesen (pictured), the Senate, and the House, and would include prosecutors, defense attorneys, mental health advocates, and victims advocates. A…

Amnesty International reported that executions worldwide fell by more than 25% last year, down from 2,148 in 2005 to 1,591 in 2006. Of all known executions that took place in 2006, 91% were carried out in six countries, China (1,010), Iran (177), Pakistan (82), Iraq (65), Sudan (65), and the United States (53). Amnesty notes that executions in China are treated as state secrets, and there may have been as many as 8,000 executions. Last year, the Philippines became the 99^th nation to abolish…

Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen (pictured) lifted the moratorium on executions that he imposed in February after accepting revised death penalty protocols submitted by the Tennessee Department of Corrections just days before the next execution. Though the new procedures include more detailed guidelines for carrying out lethal injections, the state will continue to use a controversial three-drug “cocktail” and exclude doctors from participating, meaures that some say risk severe and unnecessary…

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear Medellin v. Texas, a case that will determine whether dozens of Mexican foreign nationals on death row in the U.S. are entitled to a new hearing because they were denied their right to seek consular assistance upon their arrest. The Bush administration and the Mexican government both urged the Justices to take the case after the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals refused to comply with President Bush’s order to state courts to review the cases of the 50…

The United States Supreme Court overturned the death sentences of three Texas inmates in separate 5 – 4 rulings today. In all three cases, the juries had been prevented by the Texas statute (since changed) from fully considering the mitigating evidence presented by the defendants, evidence such as their low IQ or other mental deficiencies. In Smith v. Texas (No. 05 – 11304), the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals had reconsidered Smith’s death sentence after the case had been previously reviewed and…

After spending nearly $700,000 on the construction of a new death chamber at San Quentin prison, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has halted the project due to concerns raised by legislators that they were not consulted about the plan. It was recently revealed that state officials had secretly begun building the new death chamber and that corrections officials claimed they did not have to consult the legislature because the cost of the project would be $399,000, below the $400,000 threshold that…

Jerry Miller, a former army cook who spent nearly 25 years behind bars for a crime he did not commit, became the nation’s 200^th person freed from prison or death row through DNA testing. The first DNA exoneration in the U.S. took place in 1989. Thirteen years later, the number of freed inmates reached 100, and just five years after that, it doubled. “Five years ago, people said that the number (of exonerations) was going to dry up because there just weren’t many wrongful convictions. But…