Publications & Testimony

On December 5, Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania introduced legislation (S. 4081) to restore the right to habeas corpus to those deemed to be enemy combatants and who are facing trial before military commissions, including those being detained at the U.S. Guantanamo prison in Cuba. Habeas corpus provides an avenue for inmates in detention to challenge the constitutionality of their confinement. The roots of this protection go back to early English law…

Recently in Ohio and other states, some inmates challenging the lethal injection process in federal courts have been given stays of executions, while others, similarly situated, have been denied stays and have been executed. This inconsistent application of federal law in capital cases has raised concerns among a number of federal judges. A stay was recently granted to Ohio inmate Jerome Henderson, but denied to Jeffrey Lundgren. On December 6, U.S. District Court Judge Gregory Frost denied a…

Stays have been granted in two of the three executions that had still been scheduled for December. On December 1 in Ohio, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6^th Circuit granted a stay of execution to Jerome Henderson, whose execution had been scheduled for December 5. Henderson was allowed to join a challenge to the state’s lethal injection protocol. The 6^th Circuit denied the state’s request to rehear the issue, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to lift the stay. (Associated Press, Dec. 5…

According to the November 2006 edition of the Texas Bar Journal published by the State Bar of Texas, the State Bar has adopted a Texas version of the American Bar Association’s Guidelines for the Appointment and Performance of Defense Counsel in Death Penalty Cases. The introduction to the Texas Guidelines follows: On April 21, 2006, the Board of Directors of the State Bar of Texas adopted the Guidelines and Standards for Texas Capital Counsel. These guidelines and standards articulate the…

A recent article in the Cornell Law Review argues that state death penalty laws that allow the death penalty for the crime of rape of a child where no death occurs may be unconstitutional. Joanna H. D’Avella, NOTE: DEATH ROW FOR CHILD RAPE? CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENT UNDER THE ROPER-ATKINS “EVOLVING STANDARDS OF DECENCY” FRAMEWORK, 92 Cornell Law Review 129 (2006) (available at http://organizations.lawschool.cornell.edu/clr/92_1/davella/92 – 1.pdf).

Supreme Court and the Death Penalty The U.S. Supreme Court will be hearing four death penalty cases in January 2007: SCHRIRO V. LANDRIGAN, No. 05 – 1575 This Arizona case will be argued on January 9. The Court will decide whether defense counsel has a duty to develop and offer evidence favorable to the client in a death penalty case when the client actively opposes presentation of such mitigating evidence. On a habeas corpus petition, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9^th Circuit (en banc) held…

In a ruling that may put all executions on hold in the state of Kentucky, a Franklin County Circuit Judge held that the state must hold public hearings because it changed the way the state plans to carry out executions. A group of death row inmates had challenged the state’s lethal injection protocol in 2004, and subsequently the state altered the mixture of drugs used and the way they would be administered without going through the necessary administrative process for such a change. Recently…

Pennsylvania State Sen. Stewart J. Greenleaf, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, announced the formation of an advisory committee to examine the cases of people who have been wrongly convicted in the state. The commission will consist of about 30 members drawn from the state’s prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges, corrections officials, police, victim advocates and others. The commission will report its findings and recommendations to the Senate by Nov. 30, 2008. “[W]e’re finding…

Oscar Doster was found guilty earlier this year of capital murder in the course of a robbery in Alabama. Doster claimed that his co-defendant actually committed the murder. The jury unanimously recommended that Doster be sentenced to life without parole. In Alabama, unlike most other death penalty states, the judge is allowed to override a jury’s recommendation for life. Typically in other states, even one juror’s vote for a life sentence will prevent the court from imposing a death sentence.