Publications & Testimony

Christopher Slobogin of the University of Florida’s Law School has written a new book about the state’s legal authority to deprive people with mental disabilities of life or liberty. The book discusses a number of well known cases such as that of John Hinckley and Andrea Yates. It also includes discussion of laws dealing with the insanity defense, the death penalty, commitment of sexual predators, and hospitalization of people considered unable to make rational decisions. The book advances new…

One attorney’s appeal brief on behalf of a Texas death row inmate was so poorly written that State District Judge Noe Gonzalez of Edinburg wrote that “Applicant totally misinterprets what actually occurred in this case.” A committee of citizens and attorneys filed a complaint about the appellate lawyer with the State Bar of Texas, but nothing was done: the lawyer remains on the state’s list of approved death penalty attorneys, and the client remains on death row. The problem is widespread and…

The Charlotte School of Law is sponsoring a symposium on “Mental Illness and the Death Penalty: Seeking a ‘Reasoned Moral Response’ to an Unavoidable Condition” on October 20, 2006 in Charlotte, North Carolina. The conference will bring together medical experts, judges, defense attorneys, prosecutors, and other experts to discuss whether current law adequately accounts for the role of mental illness in capital cases. Among those scheduled to speak are James Coleman of Duke University Law…

The former Director of the FBI, William Sessions (pictured), along with Timothy Lewis, a former judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals, called on members of Congress to refrain from barring death row inmates and other defendants from the full access to the federal courts in their appeals. Some legislators have proposed eliminating federal habeas corpus review in many cases, and barring access to the federal courts to many of those raising challenges to their death sentences. The authors of the…

The latest edition of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund’s “Death Row USA” shows that the number of people on the death row in the United States is continuing to decline, falling to 3,366 as of July 1, 2006. The size of death row increased every year between 1976 and 2000, but since then it has been in a slow decline. Nationally, the racial composition of those on death row is 45% white, 42% black, and 11% latino/latina. Of jurisdictions with more than 10 people on death row, Texas (69%) and…

The FBI recently released the latest version of its Uniform Crime Reports: Crime in the United States 2005. The report showed that the murder rate in 2005 (5.6 murders per 100,000 people) was the same as in 2001, with little change in the intervening years. Death sentences, executions and the size of death row all declined during this period. As in previous years, the South had the higherst murder rate, 6.6, among the 4 geographical regions. Over 80% of the executions in the country have…

State Assemblyman Nelson T. Albano of Cape May, New Jersey, announced at a forum on the death penalty that he has changed his mind and now opposes capital punishment. Albano said that his change of heart came after reading a book about Kirk Bloodsworth, the 1^st death-row inmate in the United States to be exonerated by DNA evidence. The book led him to the insight into that the capital-punishment system is flawed and should be put on hold. “I think we owe it to the people in our prisons who are…

In an article entitled The Death Penalty: No Evidence for Deterrence, John Donnohue and Justin Wolfers examined recent statistical studies that claimed to show a deterrent effect from the death penalty. The authors conclude that the estimates claiming that the death penalty saves numerous lives “are simply not credible.” In fact, the authors state that using the same data and proper methodology could lead to the exact opposite conclusion: that is, that the death penalty actually increases the…

At a hearing in federal District Court in Maryland, Dr. Mark Heath, an anesthesiologist and assistant professor at Columbia University, testified that those designated to carry out lethal injections in the state were unprepared and unqualified for the task. “The totality of all their knowledge is grossly inadequate,” Heath stated. Sworn testimony from members of the execution team was shown at the hearing. In one videotaped segment, the doctor who was responsible for declaring that executed…

DPIC’s Lethal Injection Page ABA Report Finds Serious Problems in Florida’s Capital Punishment System A new report issued by the American Bar Association’s Death Penalty Moratorium Implementation Project found that Florida’s application of the death penalty fails to comply with ABA standards to ensure fairness and accuracy. This report was compiled by an eight-member team composed of criminal justice experts from Florida. The report cites problems in numerous areas, including: Innocence…