Publications & Testimony

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 men­tal­ly com­pe­tent before he is…

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 12^th per­son exe­cut­ed in Nevada since cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment was rein­stat­ed in 1977, and the 11^th 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 the state. On the same day…

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 of…

Marking the 50^th 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 sys­tem.” The state­ment comes five…

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…

A new report issued by Human Rights Watch today notes that most U.S. states use exe­cu­tion meth­ods that need­less­ly risk excru­ci­at­ing pain for inmates sub­ject­ed to lethal injec­tions. The report, ​“So Long as They Die: Lethal Injections in the United States,” exam­ines the his­to­ry of lethal injec­tions and the wide­spread use of pro­to­cols that were cre­at­ed three decades ago with no sci­en­tif­ic research. ​“The U.S. takes more care killing dogs than peo­ple. Just because a pris­on­er may have…

The California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice, a blue-rib­bon pan­el estab­lished by the state leg­is­la­ture to study and review the death penal­ty and relat­ed mat­ters in California, has pro­posed sig­nif­i­cant changes in the use of eye­wit­ness iden­ti­fi­ca­tion in California courts. The com­mis­sion called on leg­is­la­tors to pass a bill requir­ing the attor­ney gen­er­al’s office to con­vene a task force to devel­op guide­lines for new pro­ce­dures and train­ings in eyewitness identification.

Philippine President Gloria Macapagel-Arroyo (pic­tured) ordered the com­mu­ta­tion of all death sen­tences to life in prison, an order that will spare the lives of the 1,205 peo­ple on death row. As her nation marked Easter Sunday, she issued the clemen­cies: ​“I wish to announce that we are chang­ing our pol­i­cy on those who have been imposed the death penal­ty. We are reduc­ing their penal­ty to life impris­on­ment. Anyone who falls and makes mis­takes has a chance to stand up and cor­rect the wrong he…