Publications & Testimony

Texas Governor Rick Perry (pic­tured) has com­mut­ed the death sen­tences of 28 juve­nile offend­ers to life in prison, an act that brings the state into com­pli­ance with a recent U.S. Supreme Court rul­ing that deemed the prac­tice of exe­cut­ing those who were under 18 at the time of their crime uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. While some of these inmates will remain in more restric­tive seg­re­ga­tion, many will have their first expo­sure to prison work pro­grams, school­ing, and jobs with­in a prison unit. Current Texas…

In an edi­to­r­i­al high­light­ing pub­lic sup­port for the sen­tenc­ing option of life with­out parole in death penal­ty cas­es and the need to take steps to pro­tect against exe­cut­ing inno­cent peo­ple, USA Today recent­ly stat­ed that life with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole is a ​“fit­ting replace­ment” for the death penal­ty. The edi­to­r­i­al praised the his­toric enact­ment of a life with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole statute in Texas and oth­er recent activ­i­ties around the nation that seek to address problems with…

The U.S. Supreme Court has ordered a new sen­tenc­ing tri­al for Pennsylvania death row inmate Ronald Rompilla after find­ing that he was inad­e­quate­ly rep­re­sent­ed by coun­sel dur­ing his 1988 cap­i­tal tri­al. The 5 – 4 rul­ing marks the sec­ond time in one week that the U.S. Supreme Court has over­turned a death sen­tence cit­ing improp­er actions at tri­al. The Court not­ed that Rompilla’s tri­al attor­ney failed to inves­ti­gate records show­ing pos­si­ble mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence of men­tal retar­da­tion and a traumatic…

As Indiana death row inmate Michael Allen Lambert’s clemen­cy hear­ing was under­way, a fed­er­al court stayed his sched­uled June 22 exe­cu­tion in order to con­sid­er if his death sen­tence was con­sti­tu­tion­al in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s rul­ing in Ring v. Arizona regard­ing the jury’s role in death sen­tenc­ing. During Lambert’s tri­al in 1992, a judge allowed the vic­tim’s wife to give an impact state­ment to the jury, which then rec­om­mend­ed that Lambert receive the death penal­ty. Four years later,…

Texas Governor Rick Perry (pic­tured) has signed the bill that gives juries in death penal­ty cas­es the option of sen­tenc­ing a defen­dant to life with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole. ​“I believe this bill will improve our crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem because it gives jurors a new option to pro­tect the pub­lic with the cer­tain­ty a con­vict­ed killer will nev­er roam our streets again,” Perry said. The new law is not retroac­tive, and will apply only to those sen­tenced after September 1, 2005. (Governor’s…

Former North Carolina Judge Tom Ross is urg­ing state law­mak­ers to enact leg­is­la­tion that would impose a two-year mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions, a step he says is nec­es­sary in order to pre­vent an inno­cent per­son from being exe­cut­ed in the state. During his career, Ross served as a Superior Court Judge for 18 years, as the chair of the North Carolina Sentencing Commission, and as direc­tor of the Administrative Office of the Courts. He is cur­rent­ly the exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Z. Smith Reynolds…

The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals has reversed the con­vic­tion and death sen­tence of Curtis Edward McCarty because the state’s case was large­ly based on the tes­ti­mo­ny of a police chemist who has since been fired for shod­dy and unre­li­able lab work. The court ordered a new tri­al for McCarty, who has been on death row more than two decades for a 1982 mur­der. At issue is the expert tes­ti­mo­ny of for­mer Oklahoma City police chemist Joyce Gilchrist dur­ing McCarty’s cap­i­tal tri­al. Gilchrist had…

Newspaper edi­to­ri­als from papers in Texas and oth­er areas of the coun­try praised the Supreme Court’s rul­ing in the case of Thomas Miller-El and crit­i­cized the way in which the death penal­ty has been imple­ment­ed in Texas. Miller-El was grant­ed a new tri­al in light of strong evi­dence of racial bias dur­ing jury selec­tion at his orig­i­nal tri­al. Editorial excerpts follow:New York Times[Miller-El] is an impor­tant rul­ing that reit­er­ates to all courts the impor­tance of keep­ing dis­crim­i­na­tion out of…

In a 6 – 3 deci­sion, the Supreme Court ruled that Thomas Miller-El, a Texas death row inmate, is enti­tled to a new tri­al in light of strong evi­dence of racial bias dur­ing jury selec­tion at his orig­i­nal tri­al. In choos­ing a jury to try Miller-El, a black defen­dant, pros­e­cu­tors struck 10 of the 11 qual­i­fied black pan­elists. The Supreme Court said that the deci­sion by the Texas court find­ing no dis­crim­i­na­tion in the process ​“blinks real­i­ty” and was unrea­son­able and erro­neous in light of the…

According to the lat­est edi­tion of Death Row USA pub­lished by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF), the size of death row decreased again as of April 1, 2005. After increas­ing steadi­ly for about 25 years, the death row pop­u­la­tion start­ed decreas­ing in 2000. The cur­rent total for state and fed­er­al death rows is 3,452. On October 1, 2002, LDF report­ed a death row pop­u­la­tion of 3,697. This lat­est report counts 72 offend­ers who were juve­niles at the time of their crime,…