Publications & Testimony

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An inde­pen­dent audit of Virginia’s cen­tral crime lab­o­ra­to­ry ini­ti­at­ed by the present gov­er­nor found that the lab had botched DNA tests in the death penal­ty case of Earl Washington (pic­tured). The find­ing prompt­ed Gov. Mark Warner to order a review of 150 oth­er crim­i­nal cas­es and the devel­op­ment of pro­ce­dures to insu­late the lab from out­side polit­i­cal pres­sures. The audit was con­duct­ed by the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors. It found that the…

In the course of its research, DPIC col­lects rel­e­vant death penal­ty arti­cles that have appeared in print and on media Web sites. Our col­lec­tion cer­tain­ly does not con­tain all such arti­cles, nor do we claim that it rep­re­sents the​“best” arti­cles. It is only a rep­re­sen­ta­tive sam­ple of the exten­sive cov­er­age giv­en to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in print in a par­tic­u­lar year. For those inter­est­ed in exam­in­ing this cov­er­age, we have pre­pared an index of the articles…

Public sup­port for the death penal­ty has dropped sharply in Houston, Texas accord­ing to the 2005 Houston Area Survey con­duct­ed by Rice University. For many years Texas has led the coun­try in exe­cu­tions, and Harris County (Houston) has led all Texas coun­ties in send­ing inmates to death row and in exe­cu­tions. But most Houston res­i­dents would pre­fer the sen­tence of life with­out parole rather than the death penal­ty for those who…

In a com­pre­hen­sive study cov­er­ing 20 years and thou­sands of cap­i­tal cas­es in Ohio, the Associated Press found that the death penal­ty has been applied in an uneven and often arbi­trary fash­ion. Among the con­clu­sions of the study that ana­lyzed 1,936 indict­ments report­ed to the Ohio Supreme Court by coun­ties with cap­i­tal cas­es from October 1981…

Chief Justice Pascal Calogero of the Louisiana Supreme Court called upon the state leg­is­la­ture to pro­vide ade­quate fund­ing for indi­gent defen­dants in his State of the Judiciary address. The court had ear­li­er ruled that judges may halt pros­e­cu­tions in cas­es where funds have not been made avail­able for an ade­quate defense. The Justice con­clud­ed: As a Supreme Court Justice, I must be an advo­cate of com­pli­ance with the man­dates of our state and federal constitutions,…

Many Americans are in favour of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, accord­ing to a poll by TNS released by the Washington Post and ABC News. 65 % of respon­dents sup­port the death penal­ty for per­sons con­vict­ed of mur­der. Since 1976, 961 peo­ple have been put to death in the United States, includ­ing 17 dur­ing 2005. More than a third of all exe­cu­tions have tak­en place in the state of Texas. 12 states and the District of Columbia do not engage in cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, and moratoriums on…

During 25 years on Texas’ death row, Cesar Fierro’s men­tal health has dete­ri­o­rat­ed to the extent that his attor­ney hard­ly rec­og­nizes him. Since being sen­tenced to death in 1980, his moth­er has died, his broth­er has died, his wife divorced him and his daugh­ter stopped vis­it­ing him. Gradually, he refused to even speak with his lawyers.​“He would­n’t come out of his cell for months at a time unless he was forcibly extract­ed,” says David Dow, a con­sti­tu­tion­al law professor…

Two Puerto Rican defen­dants were giv­en life sen­tences by the same jury that had con­vict­ed them of mur­der in the course of an armored truck rob­bery that occurred in 2002. Puerto Rico has not used the death penal­ty for almost 80 years and for­bids the prac­tice in its con­sti­tu­tion. However, the U.S. fed­er­al death penal­ty applies to the Commonwealth. Gov. Anibal Acevedo Vila said that the jury act­ed in accor­dance with Puerto Rican tra­di­tion, which​“loathes and is against the…

The for­mer death row inmate con­tends the state vio­lat­ed his civ­il rights by withholding evidenceJoseph…