Publications & Testimony

A two-part inves­tiga­tive series by the Houston Chronicle casts seri­ous doubt on the guilt of a Texas man who was exe­cut­ed in 1993. Ruben Cantu had per­sis­tent­ly pro­claimed his inno­cence and was only 17 when he was charged with cap­i­tal mur­der for the shoot­ing death of a San Antonio man dur­ing an attempt­ed rob­bery. Now, the pros­e­cu­tor and the jury fore­woman have expressed doubts about the case. Moreover, both a key eye­wit­ness in the state’s case against Cantu and Cantu’s co-defen­dant have come…

Harold Wilson is the 6^th Person Exonerated in Pennsylvania More than 16 years after a Pennsylvania jury returned three death sen­tences against Harold Wilson, new DNA evi­dence has led to his acquit­tal. During Wilson’s 1989 cap­i­tal tri­al, the pros­e­cu­tion used racial­ly dis­crim­i­na­to­ry prac­tices in select­ing the jury. In 1999, Wilson’s death sen­tence was over­turned when a court deter­mined that his defense coun­sel had failed to inves­ti­gate and present mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence dur­ing his original…

A new edi­tion of the Catholic University Law Review includes papers from the uni­ver­si­ty’s recent sym­po­sium on men­tal ill­ness and the death penal­ty. The pre­sen­ta­tions by experts deliv­ered dur­ing the sym­po­sium address how pol­i­cy mak­ers and the courts might resolve the pro­pri­ety of exe­cut­ing those with men­tal ill­ness. Articles exam­ine rec­om­men­da­tions from the Task Force of the ABA’s Section of Individual Rights and Reponsibilities regard­ing men­tal dis­abil­i­ties and the death penalty.

Incar­cer­a­tion and Crime: A Complex Relationship, a new report by The Sentencing Project, exam­ines the finan­cial and social costs of incar­cer­a­tion, and eval­u­ates the lim­it­ed effec­tive­ness it has on crime rates. The report notes that the num­ber of peo­ple incar­cer­at­ed in the United States has risen by more than 500% over the past three decades, up from 330,000 peo­ple in 1972 to 2.1 mil­lion peo­ple today. Though an increase in the num­ber of offend­ers who are incarcerated has…

More than 16 years after a Pennsylvania jury returned three death sen­tences against Harold Wilson (pic­tured), new DNA evi­dence has helped lead to his acquit­tal. Yesterday, Wilson became the nation’s 122^nd per­son freed from death row accord­ing to the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC). During his 1989 cap­i­tal tri­al, Wilson was pros­e­cut­ed by for­mer Philadelphia Assistant District Attorney Jack McMahon, a man best known for his role in a train­ing video that advised new Philadelphia…

A bill to rein­state the death penal­ty in Massachusetts was reject­ed by the House of Representatives, end­ing Governor Mitt Romney’s effort to estab­lish a ​“gold stan­dard” for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. House mem­bers defeat­ed the mea­sure by a vote of 100 – 53 after four hours of floor debate. Romney had described the bill as ​“fool­proof,” stat­ing that it con­tained strict safe­guards that could pro­tect against wrong­ful con­vic­tions and that the nar­row scope of the bill meant that the death penal­ty would be…

U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill recent­ly announced that he is rethink­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment because it is expen­sive, can be polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed, and risks inno­cent lives. Winmill, who freed death row exoneree Charles Fain in 2001 after DNA evi­dence proved his inno­cence, said that Fain’s case and the very dif­fer­ent expe­ri­ence of sen­tenc­ing a guilty man to die for mur­der prompt­ed him to rethink cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. During a speech before the City Club of Boise, Winmill was joined by Fain…

A state­ment approved dur­ing this week’s meet­ing of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) calls for an end to the death penal­ty in the United States and notes that the death penal­ty ​“con­tributes to a cycle of vio­lence in our soci­ety that must be bro­ken.” The state­ment, draft­ed by the USCCB Domestic Policy Committee, is the first com­pre­hen­sive state­ment focused on the death penal­ty by the Catholic bish­ops of the United States in 25 years. It is part of the wider ​“Catholic…

Washington Post, Nov. 14, 2005, by Jerry MarkonAs prepa­ra­tions inten­si­fy for the upcom­ing death penal­ty tri­al of Zacarias Moussaoui, new­ly unsealed court doc­u­ments are lay­ing out the argu­ments pros­e­cu­tors and defense attor­neys plan to make in what is like­ly to be the only judi­cial reck­on­ing for the Sept. 11, 2001, ter­ror­ist attacks.Prosecutors will tell an Alexandria fed­er­al court jury that Moussaouideserves to die because he lied to the FBI when he was arrest­ed a mon­th­be­fore the terrorist…

The Bureau of Justice Statistics released its lat­est report on the sta­tus of the death penal­ty in the U.S., Capital Punishment, 2004, on November 13. According to the report, the nation’s death row pop­u­la­tion, exe­cu­tions, and the num­ber of peo­ple giv­en death sen­tences last year all declined. There were 3,315 peo­ple on state and fed­er­al death rows at the con­clu­sion of 2004, 63 few­er than in 2003. Last year, 125 peo­ple were sen­tenced to death, the fewest since 1973. Twelve…