Publications & Testimony

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…

By a vote of 104 – 37, mem­bers of the Texas House of Representatives ten­ta­tive­ly approved the sen­tenc­ing option of life-with­­out-parole in death penal­ty cas­es, an his­toric action that puts the state clos­er to includ­ing a sen­tenc­ing alter­na­tive offered in near­ly every death penal­ty state. The House is expect­ed to give final pas­sage to the mea­sure on May 25 and the Texas Senate, which passed sim­i­lar leg­is­la­tion ear­li­er this year, is expect­ed to approve an amended…

In its annu­al report on human rights around the world, Amnesty International not­ed the abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty in five nations in 2004. Last year, Bhutan, Greece, Samoa, Senegal and Turkey joined a grow­ing list of coun­tries that have aban­doned cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment for all crimes. The report stat­ed that such changes are pos­i­tive signs, not­ing:​“Global activism is a dynam­ic and grow­ing force. It is also the best hope of achiev­ing free­dom and jus­tice for all…

The May/​June issue of Foreign Policy mag­a­zine includes an arti­cle on the death penal­ty in Japan by Charles Lane, Supreme Court reporter for The Washington Post. Lane notes that Japan’s death penal­ty is shroud­ed in secre­cy and cul­mi­nates in exe­cu­tions out­side of all pub­lic view. He pro­vides read­ers with a rare look inside this sys­tem and com­pares that coun­try’s poli­cies with U.S. prac­tices and inter­na­tion­al trends. The arti­cle,​“A View to a Kill,” notes that although…

The Supreme Court today dis­missed as​“improv­i­dent­ly grant­ed” the case of Jose Medellin, a Mexican nation­al on death row in Texas pri­mar­i­ly because President Bush has interevened and ordered state courts to abide by a rul­ing from the International Court of Justice (ICJ). In an unsigned deci­sion, the Justices decid­ed not to review this case as a mat­ter of fed­er­al habeas cor­pus law. They did note, how­ev­er, that once this mat­ter is reviewed in Texas state courts, the U.S.

SUPREME COURT DECLINES TO RULE ON RIGHTS OF FOREIGN NATIONALS ON DEATH ROW The Supreme Court today dis­missed as​“improv­i­dent­ly grant­ed” the case of Jose Medellin, a Mexican nation­al on death row in Texas. In an unsigned deci­sion, jus­tices dis­missed as pre­ma­ture the case in which Medellin argued that an opin­ion by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) enti­tled him and the 50 Mexican for­eign nation­als on death row in the United States to a hear­ing on whether their rights…

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has ruled that a man whose attor­ney slept through por­tions of his 1992 death penal­ty tri­al should not get a new tri­al because he had anoth­er less expe­ri­enced attor­ney who remained awake. In its rul­ing, the Court denied George McFarland’s claim of inef­fec­tive­ness of coun­sel and upheld his death sen­tence.​“We con­clude that, although one of his attor­neys slept through por­tions of his tri­al, appli­cant was not deprived of the assistance of…

The lat­est Gallup Poll found sup­port for the death penal­ty at 74%, a fig­ure equal to the lev­el in 2003 and less than the 80% sup­port reg­is­tered in 1994. The poll found that sup­port for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment dropped to 56% when respon­dents were giv­en the alter­na­tive sen­tenc­ing option of life with­out parole, less than the 61% sup­port in 1997 with the same ques­tion. The per­cent­age of respon­dents who believe an inno­cent per­son has been exe­cut­ed in recent years has…

A diverse and bipar­ti­san group of more than 150 promi­nent North Carolinians have urged the General Assembly to pass a mea­sure that would halt exe­cu­tions for two years while a study com­mis­sion exam­ines the state’s cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem. A let­ter to the state’s top polit­i­cal lead­ers urg­ing pas­sage of the mora­to­ri­um bill was signed by the group, which includ­ed nine for­mer North Carolina Supreme Court Justices, for­mer pros­e­cu­tors, elect­ed offi­cials, religious…