Publications & Testimony

Speaking at the American Bar Association’s Thurgood Marshall Awards Dinner in Illinois, Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens said that the death penal­ty has​“seri­ous flaws.” He recalled the late Justice Marshall in remark­ing how much the coun­try has learned about the risks in death cas­es:​“Since his retire­ment, with the ben­e­fit of DNA evi­dence, we have learned that a sub­stan­tial num­ber of death sen­tences have been imposed erro­neous­ly,” Stevens said dur­ing the ceremony.

In a case that sharply illus­trates the fal­li­bil­i­ty of eye­wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny, Miami-Dade pros­e­cu­tors plan to ask a state judge to vacate the con­vic­tions of Luis Diaz based on DNA evi­dence that was not avail­able dur­ing his 1980 tri­al. Though he was short­er and lighter than the man that most wit­ness­es described to police, Diaz was charged with rape 25 years ago after eight women iden­ti­fied him as their attack­er. Following his tri­al, the judge said,​“I’ve never seen…

In tes­ti­mo­ny before the Massachusetts Joint Committee on the Judiciary regard­ing pro­posed leg­is­la­tion to ini­ti­ate a​“fool­proof” death penal­ty, Columbia Law School Professor Jeffrey Fagan (pic­tured) ana­lyzed recent stud­ies that claimed that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment deters mur­ders. He stat­ed that the studies ​“fall apart under close scruti­ny.” Fagan not­ed that the stud­ies are fraught with tech­ni­cal and con­cep­tu­al errors, including inappropriate…

Thomas Doswell of Pennsylvania and Larry Peterson of New Jersey recent­ly had their con­vic­tions over­turned as a direct result of DNA test­ing. Each defen­dant had serverd 18 years in prison. In Peterson’s case, the pros­e­cu­tion had sought the death penal­ty but the jury could not agree and he was sen­tenced to life. His case marked the first time a New Jersey court has over­turned a con­vic­tion because of DNA evi­dence. Both rever­sals stemmed from the work of attorneys…

A recent Alabama opin­ion poll found that less than half of those sur­veyed believe Alabama’s death penal­ty is applied fair­ly and 57% of respon­dents sup­port a tem­po­rary halt to exe­cu­tions in the state until ques­tions about fair­ness and reli­a­bil­i­ty are stud­ied. In oth­er find­ings, 96% of those sur­veyed sup­port the use of DNA in cas­es where it might prove guilt or inno­cence and 62% said they would be more like­ly to vote for a can­di­date who sup­port­ed sus­pen­sion of the…

Decided: June…

DPIC PRESENTS ANNUAL THURGOOD MARSHALL JOURNALISM AWARDS On Monday, July 25, 2005, DPIC pre­sent­ed its Ninth Annual Thurgood Marshall Journalism Awards at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. This year’s pro­gram fea­tured a keynote address by New York Assemblyman Joseph Lentol and hon­ored the fol­low­ing jour­nal­ists: CARLA CROWDER The Birmingham News Award for Excellence in Print Journalism STEVE MILLS & MAURICE POSSLEY The Chicago Tribune Award for Excellence in the Postumous…

The ded­i­ca­tion of the National Death Penalty Archive at the State University of New York at Albany will take place on August 9, 2005. Hugo Bedau of Tufts University will keynote the pro­gram, which will also fea­ture William J. Bowers, Scott Christianson, David Kaczynski, and Michael Radelet. The Archive is a part­ner­ship between the Capital Punishment Research Initiative at the School of Criminal Justice and the M.E. Grenander Department of Special Collections and Archives at the…

The fol­low­ing arti­cle by Henry Weinstein appeared in the Los Angeles Times, July 28, 2005:(DPIC Note: The Senate Judiciary Committee put off markup of the Streamlined Procedures Act, prob­a­bly until September. Also, see Letter from for­mer Attorneys General and pros­e­cu­tors oppos­ing this leg­is­la­tion.)THE NATIONBid to Speed Death Penalty Appeals Under FireConservatives and for­mer pros­e­cu­tors are among foes of a bill, before aSenate pan­el today, to curtail…

In a recent Washington Post col­umn, Richard Cohen com­pared the deep objec­tions voiced by many Americans after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that com­mu­ni­ties can con­demn prop­er­ty in dis­tressed areas to make way for eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment to the tepid reac­tion to strong evi­dence that a Missouri man may have been wrong­ly exe­cut­ed for a crime he did not com­mit. Cohen, not­ing that it seems​“far eas­i­er for the gov­ern­ment to wrong­ful­ly take a life than a par­cel of run-down…