Publications & Testimony

The American Bar Association’s Criminial Justice Section has released a new report on pre­vent­ing wrong­ful con­vic­tions. The report, Achieving Justice: Freeing the Innocent, Convicting the Guilty, includes com­men­tary and res­o­lu­tions that address­es top­ics such as false con­fes­sions, eye­wit­ness iden­ti­fi­ca­tion pro­ce­dures, use of foren­sic evi­dence, jail­house infor­mants, and com­pen­sa­tion for the wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed. The report is the result of a three-year…

The Capital Case Data Project of the American Judicature Society announced their count of 125 new death sen­tences in 2005, one less than in 2004. In addi­tion, AJS count­ed 14 death sen­tences imposed through new sen­tence pro­ceed­ings after appel­late rever­sals. Those sen­tenced to death includ­ed 63 white defen­dants, 57 black defen­dants, and 15 Hispanics. The largest num­ber of death sen­tences were imposed in California (19) and Florida (16). Texas had 14 death sen­tences, down…

Victims of vio­lence and ter­ror are not nec­es­sar­i­ly well served by a sys­tem that promis­es​“clo­sure” in the form of the death penal­ty, accord­ing to a recent Washington Post col­umn by Dahlia Lithwick. Among oth­er cas­es, the author ques­tions the assump­tions in the fed­er­al gov­ern­men­t’s case against Zacarias Moussaoui as it relates to the needs of the fam­i­ly mem­bers from the September 11^th attack: The death penal­ty tri­al of Zacarias Moussaoui has been tout­ed by the…

The U.S. Supreme Court announced on March 24 that it will rehear Kansas v. Marsh. This case involves the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of Kansas’ death penal­ty law, which was struck down by the state Supreme Court in 2004. Kansas law required a death sen­tence if the jury found that there was an equal bal­ance between the aggra­vat­ing and mit­i­gat­ing fac­tors pre­sent­ed at the sen­tenc­ing hear­ing. The U.S. Supreme Court heard argu­ments ear­li­er in December when Justice O’Connor was still…

March 26, 2006Does Killing Really Give Closure?By Dahlia LithwickThe past few weeks have been rife with the prospect of clo­sure denied.The fam­i­lies of Slobodan Milosevic’s tens of thou­sands of vic­tims were osten­si­bly denied clo­sure when he died before the con­clu­sion of his war crimes tri­bunal. The deci­sion over where to try exiled Liberian ruler Charles Taylor turns large­ly on how to afford clo­sure to his vic­tims. And the fam­i­lies of those killed in the Sept. 11, 2001,…

Most New Yorkers would choose a sen­tence of life with­out parole (LWOP) over the death penal­ty for those con­vict­ed of mur­der. In a recent poll pub­lished in Newsday, 53% of N.Y. adults said LWOP is the bet­ter penal­ty, where­as only 38% chose the death penal­ty, with 9% uncer­tain. New York’s death penal­ty was found uncon­sti­tu­tion­al by the state’s high­est court in 2004. The leg­is­la­ture elect­ed not to…

After mem­bers of the Wisconsin Senate passed a res­o­lu­tion call­ing for a ref­er­en­dum on rein­stat­ing the death penalt, a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel edi­to­r­i­al crit­i­cized the vote and urged mem­bers of the state Assembly to reject the pro­pos­al. ThoughWisconsin has not had the death penal­ty since 1853, the state leg­is­la­ture has con­sid­ered a rein­state­ment mea­sure dur­ing each of the past 20 years. The Sentinel voiced con­cerns about inno­cence, race, deter­rence, and…

South Dakota has sched­uled the exe­cu­tion of 24-year-old Elijah Page on August 28 for a mur­der com­mit­ted in 2000. Page has dropped his remain­ing appeals. He would be the first per­son exe­cut­ed in the state since it rein­stat­ed cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in 1979. The last exe­cu­tion in the state was in 1947. South Dakota has only four peo­ple on its death row. Among church lead­ers in South…

After spend­ing 18 years in prison for a crime he did not com­mit, Arthur Mumphrey received a full par­don from Texas Governor Rick Perry. The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles had unan­i­mous­ly rec­om­mend­ed that Perry par­don Mumphrey based on DNA test results that showed he was not respon­si­ble for assault­ing a 13-year-old girl in 1986, a crime for which Mumphrey was sen­tenced to serve 35 years in prison.​“My action today can­not give back the time he spent in prison, but it does…

New Jersey Attorney General Zulima Farber (pic­tured) recent­ly voiced her sup­port for extend­ing the state’s mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions, not­ing that she does not believe the death penal­ty is a​“nec­es­sary tool” for pros­e­cu­tors and believes cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment does not deter crime. ​“I don’t think it’s a deter­rent. And I under­stand revenge. I think some peo­ple deserve it. But I don’t think it’s a nec­es­sary tool.… I don’t have a philo­soph­i­cal or religious…