Publications & Testimony

Mother Jones mag­a­zine recent­ly fea­tured an arti­cle about the grow­ing oppo­si­tion to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment among U.S. Catholics, and it high­light­ed con­ser­v­a­tive Catholics who have changed their posi­tion in response to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ call for an end to the death penal­ty. The arti­cle not­ed that Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, for­mer­ly a staunch sup­port­er of the death­penal­ty, is now call­ing for lim­its on its use. And Senator Sam Brownback…

The U.S. con­duct­ed the 1,000^th exe­cu­tion since the death penal­ty was rein­stat­ed in 1976 on December 2. This is a somber mile­stone in the his­to­ry of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, but it comes at a time when the use of the death penal­ty in this coun­try is sharply declin­ing. Death sen­tences, the size of death row, exe­cu­tions, and pub­lic sup­port for the death penal­ty are all low­er than they were five years ago. This event presents an oppor­tu­ni­ty to reflect on the application of…

A clemen­cy peti­tion filed with Virginia Governor Mark Warner on behalf of Robin Lovitt, who is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed on November 30, has gained the back­ing of some of the state’s most con­ser­v­a­tive voic­es. Among those encour­ag­ing Warner to com­mute Lovitt’s sen­tence to life are for­mer Republican Virginia attor­ney gen­er­al Mark L. Earley, Rutherford Institute founder John W. Whitehead, and Lovitt’s attor­ney Kenneth Starr, who now serves as dean…

Dr. Richard Land, President of the Ethics and Religious Liberties Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention and a strong death penal­ty sup­port­er in the past, recent­ly said that sup­port is only war­rant­ed if the death penal­ty is applied fairly. ​“If you are going to sup­port the death penal­ty then you have to be as sup­port­ive of its equi­table and just appli­ca­tion,” Land…

A New Jersey Policy Perspectives report con­clud­ed that the state’s death penal­ty has cost tax­pay­ers $253 mil­lion since 1983, a fig­ure that is over and above the costs that would have been incurred had the state uti­lized a sen­tence of life with­out parole instead of death. The study exam­ined the costs of death penal­ty cas­es to pros­e­cu­tor offices, pub­lic defend­er offices, courts, and cor­rec­tion­al facil­i­ties. The report’s authors said that the cost estimate is…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…