Publications & Testimony

An editorial in the Asbury Park Press, a newspaper that formerly supported capital punishment, called on New Jersey policymakers to abandon the state’s costly death penalty and replace it with the “sure and swift” sentence of life without parole. Stating that New Jersey has wasted millions of dollars on the death penalty, but has not carried out an execution since it was reinstated in1982, the editorial noted: Can it really be 22 years since Robert O. Marshall cowardly hired hit men to shoot…

A recent editorial in Nature, the international weekly journal of science, called on scientists and doctors to refuse to participate in executions: “Don’t advise, don’t prescribe, don’t inject. Let the death penalty die a natural death.” Noting that courts are now considering whether the death penalty by lethal injection should be outlawed as inhumane, the editorial points out that the procedure was largely developed without the input of physicians, nurses, or scientists. It also notes that…

After spending more than a decade in jail for a crime he did not commit, Douglas Arthur Warney has been exonerated and will be freed from prison in New York based on DNA evidence. Police maintained that Warney had confessed to the crime. Warney is a poorly educated man with a history of delusions and suffering from an advanced case of AIDS. He originally faced the death penalty for the 1996 stabbing murder in Rochester, but was ultimately convicted of second-degree homicide and sentenced to 25…

According to a new report on the work performed by the Houston Crime Lab issued by independent investigator Michael Bromwich, at least one capital case is among the 43 DNA cases and 50 serology cases processed at the lab since 1980 that have now been identified as having “major issues.” This classification is defined as “problems that raise significant doubt as to the reliabilitiy of the work performed, the validity of the analytical results, or the correctness of the analysts’ conclusions.”

A recent op-ed by Theodore Shaw, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, urged a full and fair investigation into the case of Ruben Cantu, a Texas man who may have been innocent of the murder for which he was executed in 1993. Shaw noted that Cantu’s case was “fraught with systemic errors,” including the fact that his conviction was based on a single eyewitness identification by a man who has said he was pressured by police. Shaw praised the work of the…

A recent editorial in the La Crosse Tribune urged Wisconsin legislators to maintain the state’s ban on capital punishment. The editorial discouraged the state from reinstating capital punishment because it does not deter crime and is often unfairly applied, stating that there is no need to bring back the death penalty because the state already has the sentence of life without parole. Legislators recently voted to hold a non-binding referendum on restoring the death penalty, though the two…

Katherine Norgard’s recent book, “Hard to Place: A Crime of Alcohol,” is a personal account of the trauma experienced by her family when her adopted son is charged with a capital crime. The book is the author’s story of fighting to save her son after he was sentenced to death for the 1989 murder of an elderly couple in Tuscon, Arizona. At the time of his trial, she still did not know that her son, John Eastlack, had been born with fetal alcohol syndrome, despite his signs of mental illness. The…

U.S. District Judge Kenneth Hoyt overturned the capital conviction of Carl Wayne Buntion, noting that the Texas trial judge who sentenced him to death had a “deep-seated and vocal bias” against Buntion. In a 61-page opinion, Hoyt stated that state District Judge Bill Harmon deprived Buntion of his constitutional right to a fair trial by bullying his attorneys, meeting privately with prosecutors and deferring to their wishes, and making remarks in court such as he was “doing God’s work” by…

On May 2, 2006, the execution of Joseph Clark in Ohio was delayed 90 minutes because the execution team was unable to find a suitable vein to deliver the lethal chemicals. After the team tried repeatedly to find a vein, Clark called out, “It’s not working, it’s not working.” The guards closed the curtains to block witnesses from viewing the execution chamber. Witnesses then heard Clark moaning and groaning from behind the curtain. The curtain later reopened after the execution team managed to…