Publications & Testimony

More than a decade after juve­nile offend­er Martin Soto Fong and two oth­er men were tried and sen­tenced to death in Arizona, ques­tions about Fong’s guilt linger and are under­scored by the fact that he is the only one of the three men to remain con­vict­ed of the crime. The pros­e­cu­tor who won their con­vic­tions, Kenneth Peasley, was dis­barred last year for inten­tion­al­ly elic­it­ing false tes­ti­mo­ny to win cap­i­tal mur­der con­vic­tions in the re-tri­als of Soto’s…

The Reverend Carroll Pickett, for­mer chap­lain on death…

A vari­ety of legal experts and nation­al orga­ni­za­tions have expressed strong con­cerns about a bill intro­duced in Congress that would great­ly lim­it fed­er­al review of death penal­ty cas­es. The American Bar Association called for rejec­tion of the leg­is­la­tion: S. 1088 should not be enact­ed. Its pri­ma­ry effect would be to insure that the fed­er­al courts did not hear com­pelling claims – includ­ing claims of actu­al inno­cence. Any pos­si­ble gain in speed would be offset by…

Following an inves­ti­ga­tion indi­cat­ing that Missouri may have exe­cut­ed an inno­cent man for the 1980 mur­der of Quintin Moss, New York Times colum­nist Bob Herbert wrote that the case was filled with prob­lems that are typ­i­cal of wrong­ful con­vic­tions in cap­i­tal cas­es. Herbert stat­ed that St. Louis cir­cuit attor­ney Jennifer Joyce has tak­en​“the extra­or­di­nary step of offi­cial­ly reopen­ing a mur­der inves­ti­ga­tion after the defen­dant was exe­cut­ed,” adding that it is…

A year-long inves­ti­ga­tion by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund has uncov­ered evi­dence that Larry Griffin may have been inno­cent of the crime for which he was exe­cut­ed by the state of Missouri on June 21, 1995. Griffin main­tained his inno­cence until his death, and inves­ti­ga­tors say his case is the strongest demon­stra­tion yet of an exe­cu­tion of an inno­cent man. The report notes that a man injured in the same dri­ve-by shoot­ing that claimed the life of Quintin Moss…

The U.S. Supreme Court grant­ed a last minute stay for Robin Lovitt, who was sched­uled for exe­cu­tion at 9 PM on Monday (July 11) in Virginia. The Court did not give a rea­son for the stay, but Lovitt stat­ed that he would have been able to show his inno­cence if state offi­cials had not destroyed DNA evi­dence from his case after his tri­al. (See item below post­ed July 8). (Associated Press, July 11, 2005). See also…

A bill pro­posed by Rep. Daniel Lungren of California and Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona would strip the fed­er­al courts of much of their pow­er to decide whether death row inmates have been giv­en a fair tri­al and could result in the exe­cu­tion of inno­cent defen­dants. The bill is enti­tled the Streamlined Procedures Act of 2005. The Washington Post editorialized…

Robin Lovitt is sched­uled for exe­cu­tion on July 11 in Virginia despite doubts about his guilt and the state’s weak and cir­cum­stan­tial case against him. Lovitt’s attor­neys main­tain that DNA test­ing of evi­dence in his case would prove that he is not guilty of the 1998 mur­der of Clayton Dicks, but the tests are not pos­si­ble because a court clerk mis­tak­en­ly destroyed the evi­dence. Columnist Margaret Edds of the The Virginian-Pilot recent­ly wrote about the upcoming execution…

A num­ber of states are grap­pling with the ques­tion of whether the lethal injec­tion drug Pavulon, also known as pan­curo­ni­um bro­mide, par­a­lyzes a con­demned inmate’s mus­cles in a way that masks hor­rif­ic pain felt dur­ing an exe­cu­tion, a side-effect that experts say could vio­late of the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment. The Tennessee Supreme Court heard argu­ments about this issue in a death row case in June 2005 and a sim­i­lar case is expected to…

Retiring Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s evolv­ing skep­ti­cism about cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment has played a sig­nif­i­cant role in a num­ber of key deci­sions regard­ing the death penal­ty through­out her 24 years on the U.S. Supreme Court. During pub­lic appear­ances in recent years, she has often men­tioned her con­cerns about inno­cence and the need to pro­tect a cap­i­tal defen­dan­t’s con­sti­tu­tion­al right to ade­quate rep­re­sen­ta­tion. In a 2001 speech she stat­ed,​“Serious questions…