Publications & Testimony

Legislation that would allow those con­vict­ed of cap­i­tal mur­der to be sen­tenced to life in prison with­out parole recent­ly failed to win a key pro­ce­dur­al vote in the Texas Senate, large­ly because of oppo­si­tion from pros­e­cu­tors and pro-death penal­ty orga­ni­za­tions who said it would result in few­er death sen­tences. Although sup­port­ed by a strong major­i­ty of the sen­a­tors and the peo­ple of Texas, the bill need­ed a 2/​3 major­i­ty in order to be debat­ed. The Senate’s…

According to a new report issued by Amnesty International, the United States is among four coun­tries that car­ried out the vast major­i­ty of the 3,797 exe­cu­tions around the world in 2004. Amnesty’s report states that the nations car­ry­ing out the most exe­cu­tion­ers last year were China (3,400), Iran (159), Vietnam (64), United States (59), Saudi Arabia (33), Pakistan (15), Kuwait (9), Bangladesh (7), Egypt (6), Singapore (6), and Yemen (6). The report notes that the increase in…

A Georgia Superior Court over­turned the mur­der con­vic­tion of death row inmate Willie Palmer after find­ing that pros­e­cu­tors hid a $500 pay­off to the state’s key tri­al wit­ness, an act the judge said was​“in defi­ance of (the state’s) legal and eth­i­cal duties.” The judge also threw out Palmer’s death sen­tence on the grounds that his tri­al lawyer failed to inves­ti­gate and present evi­dence of Palmer’s men­tal retar­da­tion. In his opin­ion, the judge not­ed that prosecutors…

In the most com­pre­hen­sive exam­i­na­tion of a statute in the his­to­ry of the New York State Legislature, state law­mak­ers released a report high­light­ing the tes­ti­mo­ny of 170 wit­ness­es at five statewide hear­ings on the state’s death penal­ty law. The report, issued by Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver along with the Chairs of the Committees on Codes, the Judiciary and Correction, is a thor­ough exam­i­na­tion of the statute and its…

During his 26 years as leader of the Roman Catholic Church, the late Pope John Paul II fre­quent­ly called for an end to the death penal­ty. Among his state­ments on this issue were the fol­low­ing:​“May the death penal­ty, an unwor­thy pun­ish­ment still used in some coun­tries, be abol­ished through­out the world.” (Prayer at the Papal Mass at Regina Coeli Prison in Rome, July 9, 2000).​“A sign of hope is the increas­ing recog­ni­tion that the dig­ni­ty of human life must nev­er be taken…

As two men con­vict­ed of cap­i­tal mur­der under the fed­er­al death penal­ty statute await their sen­tenc­ing on April 11, Puerto Rican Governor Anibal Acevedo and the Association of American Jurists, a non-gov­­ern­­men­­tal orga­ni­za­tion act­ing as a con­sul­tant at the United Nations, protest­ed the use of the death penal­ty in Puerto Rico. Though Puerto Rico’s Constitution pro­hibits the death penal­ty and its res­i­dents have con­sis­tent­ly voiced strong oppo­si­tion to it, residents…

The Following Newspapers Published Editorials Supporting the Abolition of the Juvenile…

A series of pub­lic opin­ion polls con­duct­ed in the years lead­ing up to the U.S. Supreme Court’s abo­li­tion of the juve­nile death penal­ty showed that only about a third of Americans sup­port­ed the use of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment against those who were younger than 18 years old at the time of their crime. The sur­vey results included…

Op-Eds are list­ed in chrono­log­i­cal order, with links to the…

A two-year study of 11 wrong­ful con­vic­tion cas­es in Virginia found that mis­tak­en eye­wit­ness iden­ti­fi­ca­tion is the major rea­son inno­cent peo­ple have been con­vict­ed in the state. The report’s rec­om­men­da­tions note that Virginia could dra­mat­i­cal­ly reduce the num­ber of wrong­ful con­vic­tions through a series of reforms, such as chang­ing a vari­ety of police pro­ce­dures, relax­ing the state’s 21-day rule to allow evi­dence of inno­cence to be con­sid­ered beyond this…