Publications & Testimony

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…

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, attacks despaired that…

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 modify the…

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 a vari­ety of oth­er issues in its…