Publications & Testimony

The President’s DNA Initiative has released Principles of Forensic DNA for Officers of the Court, a CD-ROM that address­es the use of DNA in judi­cial pro­ceed­ings. This resource is designed for pros­e­cu­tors, defense attor­neys, and judges, and pro­vides a sim­ple overview of DNA tech­nolo­gies and the issues that arise when DNA evi­dence is pre­sent­ed in court. The top­ics are cov­ered in short para­graphs accom­pa­nied by illus­tra­tions, and links to oth­er resources are…

A new report issued by Amnesty International exam­ines the issue of men­tal ill­ness and the death penal­ty. The report notes that the U.S. Supreme Court’s deci­sions to halt the exe­cu­tions of juve­nile offend­ers and those with men­tal retar­da­tion left a ques­tion mark over anoth­er cat­e­go­ry of offend­er, the men­tal­ly ill. In the report, Amnesty asks:​“If the dimin­ished cul­pa­bil­i­ty asso­ci­at­ed with youth and men­tal retar­da­tion ren­der the death penal­ty an excessive…

According to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, hous­ing an inmate in California’s cor­rec­tions sys­tem costs an aver­age of $34,150 per year, though that fig­ure is high­er for those on death row or serv­ing a sen­tence of life-with­­out-parole. In cap­i­tal cas­es, a more expen­sive inves­ti­ga­tion and pros­e­cu­tion process, as well as long and com­pli­cat­ed appeals, rais­es the costs sig­nif­i­cant­ly. Only about 1% of homi­cides in the state are tried as…

The British Privy Council in London unan­i­mous­ly struck down the impo­si­tion of manda­to­ry death sen­tences in the Bahamas. This land­mark deci­sion held that the law​“should be con­strued as impos­ing a dis­cre­tionary and not a manda­to­ry sen­tence of death.” The Privy Council rul­ing said that the manda­to­ry death penal­ty should have been regard­ed as inhu­mane and degrad­ing pun­ish­ment as ear­ly as 1973.​“The ram­i­fi­ca­tions and con­se­quences of the Privy Council’s ruling…

Congress recent­ly passed the re-autho­riza­­­tion of the Patriot Act and this bill is like­ly to cur­tail the appeals of state death row inmates in fed­er­al courts. The leg­is­la­tion, which is due to be signed into law this week by President Bush, would allow states to obtain approval of their sys­tems of rep­re­sen­ta­tion in death penal­ty cas­es from the U.S. Attorney General rather than from the fed­er­al courts, as required under a pre­vi­ous law. Once approval is granted,…

Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued a stay of exe­cu­tion for three co-defen­­dants on fed­er­al death row who were sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed in May. Judge Huvelle’s order delays the exe­cu­tions indef­i­nite­ly and is the result of a lethal injec­tion chal­lenge raised by the three men, James H. Roane Jr., Richard Tipton, and Cory Johnson. This case marks at least the sixth time since January that exe­cu­tions have been…

Wounds That Do Not Bind: Victim-based Perspectives on the Death Penalty, a new book by James R. Acker and David Reed Karp, exam­ines how fam­i­ly mem­bers and advo­cates for vic­tims address the impact of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. The book presents the per­son­al sto­ries of vic­tims’ fam­i­ly mem­bers and their inter­ac­tions with the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem. It also exam­ines the rel­e­vant areas of legal research, includ­ing the use of vic­tim impact evi­dence in capital…

Prosecutors in Maryland, New Jersey, and Delaware have all cho­sen to seek life sen­tences in three high-pro­­file mur­der cas­es. Among oth­er con­cerns, they not­ed their wish to bring com­fort to vic­tims’ fam­i­lies and to secure the pub­lic’s longterm safe­ty. The pros­e­cu­tors expressed con­fi­dence that not seek­ing the death penal­ty was the right choice in these cas­es. Maryland pros­e­cu­tors announced that they will not seek the death penal­ty for sniper John Allen Muhammad, who…

Californians’ sup­port for the death penal­ty is declin­ing accord­ing to results of a new sur­vey con­duct­ed in February 2006 by the Field Poll. The statewide poll revealed that only 63% of respon­dents favor keep­ing the death penal­ty for seri­ous crimes, a fig­ure that is low­er than the 72% sup­port for the death penal­ty mea­sured in 2002 and sig­nif­i­cant­ly less than the 83% who voiced sup­port for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in both 1985 and 1986. The sur­vey also found…

In his new book, Death by Design: Capital Punishment as a Social Psychological System, Craig Haney argues that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, and par­tic­u­lar­ly the events that lead to death sen­tenc­ing itself, are main­tained through a sys­tem that dis­tances and dis­en­gages peo­ple from the true nature of the task. Haney, a pro­fes­sor of psy­chol­o­gy at the University of California, Santa Cruz, relies on his own research and that oth­er of oth­er sci­en­tists in approaching the…