Publications & Testimony

The lat­est edi­tion of Death Row USA from the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund is now avail­able. The report reveals that the num­ber of peo­ple on death rows across the coun­try dropped by almost 90 inmates from one year ago. There were 3,471 inmates on death row as of October 1, 2004. In 2005, the death row pop­u­la­tion had shrunk to 3,383. California’s death row remains the largest in the coun­try with 648 peo­ple, fol­lowed by Texas (414), Florida (388), and Pennsylvania (233). The…

The release of two Virginia men who were exon­er­at­ed after the state con­duct­ed new DNA test­ing on evi­dence from 31 cas­es has prompt­ed Governor Mark Warner (pic­tured) to call for a more sweep­ing review of the state’s stored bio­log­i­cal evi­dence. Warner has ordered 660 box­es con­tain­ing thou­sands of files from 1973 through 1988 to be exam­ined for cas­es that can be retest­ed using the lat­est DNA tech­nol­o­gy. ​“I believe a look back at these retained case files is the only moral­ly acceptable course,…

A recent Newsweek arti­cle notes that a grow­ing num­ber of jurors in cap­i­tal mur­der cas­es are voic­ing their con­cerns about the accu­ra­cy and fair­ness of the jus­tice sys­tem. Some of these jurors have peti­tioned the legal author­i­ties to cor­rect injus­tices regard­ing pos­si­bly inno­cent or incor­rect­ly sen­tenced inmates.“I felt like I was pushed into mak­ing the deci­sion of the 10 oth­er jurors. I did­n’t feel com­fort­able with it, but I did­n’t know my rights as a juror,” said Sylvia Coeburn, one of…

During a recent meet­ing of the European Union’s full assem­bly, European Parliament pres­i­dent Josep Borrell called on the 76 coun­tries around the world that con­tin­ue to retain the death penal­ty to dis­con­tin­ue use of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. He not­ed that the United States is the only demo­c­ra­t­ic state that makes ​“wide­spread use” of the death penal­ty and that the European Union has a duty to con­vince Americans to end the prac­tice. ​“Most unfor­tu­nate­ly, in the U.S. the 1000^th exe­cu­tion was carried…

Former San Antonio District Attorney Sam Millsap, who once pro­claimed him­self a ​“life­long sup­port­er of the death penal­ty,” now oppos­es cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Millsap says his deci­sion to oppose the death penal­ty was recent­ly affirmed as evi­dence sur­faced that Texas may have killed an inno­cent man when it exe­cut­ed Ruben Cantu, a San Antonio man who was sen­tenced to die while Millsap was DA. ​“It is trou­bling to me per­son­al­ly. No deci­sion is more fright­en­ing than seek­ing the death penal­ty. We owe…

In a let­ter to act­ing New Jersey Govenor Richard J. Codey, Ocean County pros­e­cu­tor Thomas F. Kelaher called for an end to the death penal­ty in New Jersey because he feels the sys­tem is inef­fec­tive and fails to meet the needs of vic­tims’ fam­i­lies. Kelaher, who has been a pros­e­cu­tor for 23 years, said that life with­out parole would be a more appro­pri­ate sen­tenc­ing option for those con­vict­ed of first-degree mur­der. ​“The his­to­ry of non­ap­pli­ca­tion of the law has been a cru­el hoax on families of…

A recent edi­to­r­i­al in The Birmingham News crit­i­cized the cost­ly and unfair nature of Alabama’s cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem. It also called on state leg­is­la­tors to, at a min­i­mum, take steps that would lim­it the num­ber of crimes eli­gi­ble for the death penal­ty. The news­pa­per, which recent­ly wrote a series of edi­to­ri­als chang­ing its long-stand­ing sup­port for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment and call­ing on the state to aban­don the use of the death penalty,…

Tokyo, JapanDecember 6 – 7, 2005Next we would like to wel­come, Mr. Richard Dieter, Executive Director of the Death Penalty Information Center.I would like to thank the European Commission, the American Bar Association and the Japan Federation of Bar Associations for invit­ing me to speak about the death penal­ty in the United States. I first want to say that our Japanese hosts have been espe­cial­ly gra­cious – I imme­di­ate­ly felt wel­comed here, and I want to thank you for that.Today we are addressing…

As evi­dence sur­faces that Texas may have killed an inno­cent man when it exe­cut­ed Ruben Cantu in 1993, recent edi­to­ri­als by the Austin American-Statesman and the Dallas Morning News have crit­i­cized Texas’ death penal­ty and called on the state to take a clos­er look at its ​“flawed” cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem. The Austin American-Stateman wrote: We all should remem­ber (Ruben) Cantu’s case and the lessons it offers as the coun­try car­ries out its 1000^th exe­cu­tion since 1976 sched­uled for today in…

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear argu­ments in two death penal­ty cas­es on Wednesday, December 7, 2005, includ­ing a case to deter­mine the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of Kansas’ death penal­ty statute and a case that involves the issue of inno­cence. In Kansas v. Marsh, No. 04 – 1170, the jus­tices will con­sid­er the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of Kansas’ death penal­ty, which requires that a death sen­tence be imposed when a jury finds that aggra­vat­ing cir­cum­stance and mit­i­gat­ing cir­cum­stances have equal weight. The jury…