Publications & Testimony

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 the…

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

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 time restric­tion, ensuring that…

Recently, var­i­ous vic­tims and rel­a­tives of vic­tims have tes­ti­fied before state leg­is­la­tures con­cern­ing the death penal­ty. In Connecticut, a woman who had been attacked by con­vict­ed mur­der­er Michael Ross, tes­ti­fied that she nev­er­the­less oppos­es his exe­cu­tion. And in North Carolina, the sis­ter of a man who was mur­dered in 2003 urged state leg­is­la­tors to recon­sid­er the death penalty.Vivian Dobson, who was attacked by Ross in 1983, said that the death penal­ty re-trau­ma­tizes vic­tims’ family…

Bill Pelke tells of the life-alter­ing trans­for­ma­tion that occurred after his 78-year-old grand­moth­er was mur­dered by four teen-aged girls in his book, Journey of Hope…From Violence to Healing. Though at first he sup­port­ed the death penal­ty for 15-year-old Paula Cooper, one of the young girls who had mur­dered his grand­moth­er in her home for $10 and an old car, he lat­er opposed her exe­cu­tion and suc­cess­ful­ly fought to have Cooper’s death sen­tence over­turned. The book fol­lows his personal…

The Florida Supreme Court has vacat­ed James Floyd’s 1985 con­vic­tion and death sen­tence, rul­ing that crit­i­cal evi­dence was with­held by the pros­e­cu­tion and that the evi­dence might have been enough to change the ver­dict at tri­al. In its 4 – 2 deci­sion, the Court ruled that the pros­e­cu­tor’s fail­ure to inform Floyd’s defense coun­sel that an eye­wit­ness had seen two white men enter­ing the vic­tim’s home on the day of the mur­der and saw them leave in a sus­pi­cious man­ner approx­i­mate­ly one hour later…

The Death Penalty Information Center Web site con­tains sum­maries of the issues in upcom­ing Supreme Court argu­ments relat­ed to the death penal­ty, as well as sum­maries of recent Supreme Court deci­sions. Upcoming…

A recent arti­cle in the Western New England Law Review exam­ines ways in which the rules of evi­dence and pro­ce­dures at cap­i­tal sen­tenc­ing tri­als are less rig­or­ous than those applied at the guilt-phase of the tri­al. In cap­i­tal sen­tenc­ing hear­ings, evi­dence is per­mit­ted that would not be admis­si­ble to prove guilt. The defen­dant does not receive tra­di­tion­al tri­al pro­tec­tions at the sen­tenc­ing tri­al. For exam­ple, hearsay may be received by the jury dur­ing sen­tenc­ing, but is generally inadmissible…

An Oklahoma County District Judge has deter­mined that Osbaldo Torres, a Mexican for­eign nation­al who was once on Oklahoma’s death row, should have been told before his tri­al that he had a right to con­tact his home coun­try’s con­sulate. Judge Twyla Mason Gray also found that Torres had inef­fec­tive coun­sel at his tri­al. Her find­ings stem from a December hear­ing held at the request of the State Court of Criminal Appeals. The appeals court want­ed Judge Gray to hear evi­dence about Torres’…

U.S. Senator Rick Santorum, an out­spo­ken con­ser­v­a­tive Catholic from Pennsylvania, is re-exam­in­ing his views on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. In response to the announce­ment by the U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops con­cern­ing their new Campaign to End the Use of the Death Penalty, Santorum said, ​“I felt very trou­bled about cas­es where some­one may have been con­vict­ed wrong­ly. DNA evi­dence def­i­nite­ly should be used when pos­si­ble. I agree with the pope that in the civ­i­lized world … the application of…