Publications & Testimony

A recent New York Times poll found that 56% of sur­veyed New York vot­ers pre­fer a sen­tence of life in prison (either with­out parole or with the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole) over the death penal­ty for peo­ple con­vict­ed of mur­der. Only 34% said they sup­port­ed the death penal­ty, a sig­nif­i­cant drop from the 48% who sup­port­ed it in 1994, just pri­or to New York’s rein­state­ment of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. This shift against the death penal­ty comes as state law­mak­ers are con­sid­er­ing whether to aban­don or try to…

A new American Bar Association study has found that thou­sands of sus­pects, includ­ing some who are lat­er giv­en death sen­tences, risk wrong­ful con­vic­tion because they are pres­sured to accept guilty pleas or have incom­pe­tent attor­neys. After sur­vey­ing 22 states, the ABA com­mit­tee lead­ing the study stat­ed that legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion for indi­gent defen­dants is in ​“a state of crisis.“In its report, the ABA fea­tured a num­ber of wrong­ful con­vic­tion cas­es, includ­ing the recent release of Lousiana death…

Three-quar­ters of Americans believe that an inno­cent per­son has been exe­cut­ed with­in the last five years and that con­vic­tion is result­ing in low­er lev­els of sup­port for the death penal­ty, accord­ing to a study pub­lished in the February issue of Criminology & Public Policy. The study, con­duct­ed by researchers James D. Unnever of Radford University and Francis T. Cullen of the University of Cincinnati, found that sup­port for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment was sig­nif­i­cant­ly low­er among both blacks and…

Nancy Filiault, whose sis­ter was mur­dered in 2000, tes­ti­fied that she oppos­es cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment because the legal process fur­ther trau­ma­tizes vic­tims’ fam­i­lies. At the con­clu­sion of a Judiciary Committee hear­ing on leg­is­la­tion intro­duced to replace Connecticut’s death penal­ty with a life-with­out-parole sen­tence, Filiault said that sit­ting through the cap­i­tal tri­al of the man charged with the mur­der was ​“heinous, incred­i­bly cru­el, and trau­ma­tiz­ing.” The defen­dant, who con­fessed to the crime,…

A record 110 per­sons aged 60 and old­er were on death rows across the United States at the end of 2003, a num­ber that is near­ly triple the 39 death row seniors count­ed nine years ago by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, accord­ing to an arti­cle in USA Today. In many states, elder­ly pris­on­ers who are not on death row are housed in geri­atric facil­i­ties with­in pris­ons or they are placed in ​“end of life” pro­grams, but these pro­grams are not offered to seniors fac­ing the death penal­ty. The condemned…

During his recent State of the Union address before Congress, President George W. Bush raised con­cerns about race, wrong­ful con­vic­tions, and ade­quate rep­re­sen­ta­tion for those fac­ing the death…

Key mem­bers of the New York Legislature who sup­port­ed the death penal­ty when it was rein­stat­ed in 1995 have changed their posi­tions and now favor let­ting the law expire. Joseph Lentol, Chair of the Codes Committee of the N.Y. Assembly, says he now sup­ports life with­out parole instead of restor­ing the death penal­ty for which he vot­ed in 1995. His announce­ment came at the con­clu­sion of hear­ings into the issue. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver stat­ed that he will not be pres­sured into having the…

By PATRICK D. HEALYALBANY, Feb. 10 — A sol­id major­i­ty of Democrats in the State Assembly now oppose res­ur­rect­ing the death penal­ty, includ­ing key lead­ers who vot­ed for the law in 1995, mak­ing it more like­ly that it will not be revived, accord­ing to law­mak­ers on both sides.After two months of hear­ings into the issue, the chair­man of the Assembly Codes Committee, Joseph R. Lentol, said on Thursday that he now sup­port­ed life with­out parole instead of restor­ing the death penal­ty, for which he…

Schenectady County District Attorney Robert Carney joined a lengthy list of high-pro­file New Yorkers tes­ti­fy­ing that they oppose rein­state­ment of New York’s death penal­ty. During a leg­isla­tive hear­ing in Albany, Carney tes­ti­fied that New York would be best served by aban­don­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment and sen­tenc­ing offend­ers to life with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole. He cit­ed the high costs of the death penal­ty and the spe­cial pro­tec­tions that would need to be put in place. (Albany Times-Union,…

Massachusetts Superior Court Judge Robert Mulligan recent­ly over­turned Laurence Adams’ con­vic­tion for a 1972 mur­der of a tran­sit work­er because police had with­held crit­i­cal evi­dence. Adams had been con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in 1974 based on the tes­ti­mo­ny of two wit­ness­es who had unre­lat­ed charges dropped fol­low­ing the tri­al. The gov­ern­men­t’s key wit­ness tes­ti­fied that Adams had admit­ted to the offense in a dis­cus­sion in a pri­vate home, but sub­se­quent­ly dis­cov­ered records indicated…