Publications & Testimony

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…

Members of an American Bar Association Assessment Team have urged Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen to extend the state’s current moratorium on executions so that a more thorough review of the state’s capital punishment laws can be conducted. The seven-member team also offered 14 recommendations to address problems identified during their review of Tennessee’s death penalty. Racial and geographic disparities in capital cases, poorly trained defense attorneys, heavy caseloads for those…

A new scientific study of 41 lethal injections that took place in California and North Carolina during the past two decades revealed that two of the three drugs used to carry out these executions are not administered in a way that reliably produces death in the way intended. The study, published in the Public Library of Science Journal, PLoS Medicine, found that inmates were given a uniform amount of anesthesia (sodium thiopental) regardless of their body weight or other factors, such as their…

A Cincinnati Enquirer examination of death penalty decisions issued by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6^th Circuit revealed that judges appear to consistently vote along party lines, thereby injecting arbitrariness into death penalty rulings. The judges do most of their work as members of randomly selected three-judge panels. Sixteen judges are eligible to sit on those panels, including nine Republican appointees and seven Democratic appointees. This means life-and-death decisions often hinge…

Three organizations whose memberships include family members of murder victims recently issued a joint statement in conjunction with National Crime Victims’ Rights Week, which takes place April 22 — 28, 2007. The statement, issued by the leaders of Murder Victims’ Families for Human Rights, Murder Victims’ Families for Reconciliation, and Journey of Hope, called for governmental policies that serve the true needs of family members. The groups called for an end to the death penalty, noting that…

The California Supreme Court has unanimously ruled that a defendant may be spared the death penalty because he is mentally deficient in one area, even if his IQ score falls in the normal range. The decision gives judges broader discretion to spare defendants from execution for reasons of mental impairment and clarifies a 2005 ruling that allowed those on death row to challenge their sentences on the grounds of mental retardation. The court ruled that trial courts may give greater weight to…

Three organizations whose memberships include family members of murder victims recently issued a joint statement in conjunction with National Crime Victims’ Rights Week, which takes place April 22 — 28, 2007. The statement, issued by the leaders of Murder Victims’ Families for Human Rights, Murder Victims’ Families for Reconciliation, and Journey of Hope, called for governmental policies that serve the true needs of family members. The groups called for an end to the death penalty, noting that…