Publications & Testimony

Kenyan Justice Minister Kiraitu Murungi announced that those on the nation’s death row will soon have their sen­tences com­mut­ed to life impris­on­ment. Murungi not­ed that he is work­ing close­ly with Kenya’s President’s Office to bring the nation into com­pli­ance with its oblig­a­tions under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. ​“We are com­mit­ted to abol­ish­ing the death penal­ty. The death sen­tence is a vio­la­tion of the right to life,” he said. In the…

“Hidden Victims,” a new book by soci­ol­o­gist Susan F. Sharp of the University of Oklahoma, exam­ines the impact of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment on the fam­i­lies of those fac­ing exe­cu­tion. Through a series of in-depth inter­views with fam­i­lies of the accused, Sharp illus­trates from a soci­o­log­i­cal stand­point how fam­i­ly mem­bers and friends of those on death row are, in effect, indi­rect vic­tims of the ini­tial crime. The book empha­sizes their respons­es to sen­tenc­ing, as well as…

Preliminary data from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report for 2004 found that mur­ders in the U. S. dropped last year by 3.6%. The num­ber of exe­cu­tions also declined in 2004. In 2003, the South had the high­est mur­der rate in the coun­try, and that appeared to con­tin­ue in 2004 even as the South car­ried out 85% of the nation’s exe­cu­tions. The Northeast, which had no exe­cu­tions in 2004, had the low­est mur­der rate in 2003 and that posi­tion appeared to remain the same in 2004. The…

In its recent study of Ohio’s death penal­ty, the Associated Press found that of the 1,936 cap­i­tal indict­ments filed statewide from 1981 – 2002, about 50% end­ed in plea bar­gains. Of those cas­es, 131 peo­ple who plead­ed guilty in exchange for escap­ing the death penal­ty were charged with killing mul­ti­ple vic­tims. By con­trast, 196 of the 274 peo­ple who were sen­tenced to death row dur­ing the same 21-year time span were con­vict­ed of killing a sin­gle vic­tim. The AP’s Ohio…

Death row inmates from around the coun­try will present a $5,000 col­lege schol­ar­ship to Zach Osborne, the broth­er of a 4‑year-old mur­der vic­tim, who plans to attend East Carolina University to pur­sue a career in law enforce­ment. The schol­ar­ship is an annu­al award giv­en by those on death row who par­tic­i­pate in the pub­li­ca­tion of​“Compassion,” a newslet­ter that pro­vides a forum for com­mu­ni­ca­tion between con­vict­ed offend­ers and mur­der vic­tims’ fam­i­lies. Each year,…

A recent inves­ti­ga­tion led by a for­mer Justice Department offi­cial report­ed that ana­lysts at the Houston Crime Lab fab­ri­cat­ed find­ings in at least four drug cas­es, includ­ing one in which a sci­en­tist failed to con­duct test­ing before issu­ing con­clu­sions to sup­port police sus­pi­cions — an ille­gal prac­tice known as​“dry­lab­bing.” The report con­tains some of the most seri­ous alle­ga­tions made yet against the Houston Crime Lab and is the first to crit­i­cize the lab’s…

In a pro­posed amend­ment to its penal code, Indian lead­ers are seek­ing to imple­ment a change that would end the nation’s death penal­ty even​“in the rarest of rare” cas­es. The amend­ed Indian Penal Code would abol­ish the death penal­ty and replace it with a strict life with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole mea­sure. Currently, the nation’s life sen­tence statute only requires impris­on­ment for 14 years. The deci­sion to seek an offi­cial end to cap­i­tal punishment fulfills…

On May 31, 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to con­sid­er the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of Kansas’ death penal­ty law. The cur­rent statute requires that a death sen­tence be imposed when a jury finds that the aggra­vat­ing and mit­i­gat­ing cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the crime have equal weight (i.e., a tie results in death). When review­ing Michael Marsh’s death sen­tence in 2004, the Kansas Supreme Court ruled that the state’s statute was uncon­sti­tu­tion­al, hold­ing that the…

The North Carolina House of Representatives will soon vote on a two-year mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions in the state while the death penal­ty is stud­ied. A mora­to­ri­um bill passed the full Senate in 2003, but had been pre­vi­ous­ly blocked from com­ing to a vote in the House. The House Judiciary Committee will like­ly con­sid­er the mora­to­ri­um mea­sure on Tuesday, May 31. The com­mit­tee’s approval could mean a full House vote on the leg­is­la­tion as ear­ly as that same day. The full…

The Empty Chair: Death Penalty Yes or No is a doc­u­men­tary film pro­duced and direct­ed by Jacqui Lofaro and Victor Teich that tells the sto­ries of four fam­i­lies con­fronting the loss of loved ones and voic­ing dif­fer­ent per­spec­tives on the death penal­ty. The movie also fea­tures Sister Helen Prejean, an author and spir­i­tu­al advi­sor to those con­demned to die, and Donald Cabana (pic­tured), a for­mer death row warden…