Publications & Testimony

Although death sen­tences have declined around the coun­try, they have dra­mat­i­cal­ly increased in Jefferson County, Alabama, since 1993 when state leg­is­la­tors expand­ed the death penal­ty to include dri­ve-by shoot­ings. Jefferson County, which includes Birmingham, account­ed for near­ly 50% of the state’s death sen­tences in 2005 and 2006. According to fed­er­al data, Alabama is 23^rd in pop­u­la­tion nation­al­ly but has the coun­try’s sixth largest death row and is one of the lead­ing states in the nation in…

The Washington State Supreme Court recent­ly came with­in one vote of effec­tive­ly abol­ish­ing the state’s death penal­ty when it ruled in the case of death row inmate Dayva Cross. Cross is on death row for the mur­der of his wife and her two teenage daugh­ters. Attorneys for Cross had argued that their client should not be exe­cut­ed because killers who had com­mit­ted worse crimes had been spared the death penal­ty. The 2003 case of Green River Killer Gary Ridgway, who received a life sentence in…

Former Union County pros­e­cu­tor Scott Brewer, who is already under inves­ti­ga­tion for alleged­ly obstruct­ing jus­tice in the 1996 death penal­ty tri­al of John Gregory Hoffman, has been accused of with­hold­ing impor­tant evi­dence in a sec­ond cap­i­tal tri­al. Attorneys rep­re­sent­ing Darrell Strickland have asked the North Carolina State Bar to dis­ci­pline Brewer for improp­er­ly with­hold­ing three state­ments made by the vic­tims’ wife, Gail Brown, the only eye­wit­ness to the crime for which their client was…

Judicature Journal Examines Impact of Death Penalty on Justice…

During a recent pre­sen­ta­tion at Valparaiso University, Sister Helen Prejean (pic­tured) engaged in a dis­cus­sion with the school’s pas­tor, Rev. Joseph Cunningham. Responding to a remark that Prejean had made about defense attor­neys only need­ing to con­vince one juror to vote against the death penal­ty, Cunningham told Prejean that he had been fore­man of a jury that sen­tenced a man to death in 1995. He remarked that he is still deal­ing with the emo­tion­al toll of that expe­ri­ence, stat­ing, ​“I ache…

A new book by Michael Meltsner, The Making of a Civil Rights Lawyer, pro­vides a per­son­al his­to­ry of the civ­il rights move­ment from the per­spec­tive of an attor­ney com­mit­ted to social change. Meltsner’s writ­ings bring to life a sem­i­nal peri­od of legal reform in U.S. his­to­ry. The book dis­cuss­es famous cas­es and the turn­ing points in the civ­il rights and death penal­ty move­ments. Stephen Bright of the Southern Center for Human Rights notes, ​“Michael Meltsner has per­formed a great public…

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 ABA effort led by an ad hoc group…

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 considerably…

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 gov­ern­ment as a way to bring…

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 on the Court. Now that…