Publications & Testimony

The Washington Post editorialized about the death penalty in 2005, commenting on many of the points made in DPIC’s Year End Report: [T]he overall tendency is unmistakable: At least for now, with crime and murder rates low and the threat of wrongful convictions on people’s minds, the death penalty does not have the same attraction that it once had. Finally ending the death penalty in America, however, will not happen quickly. Despite any number of DNA exonerations and some serious questions…

Former Death Row Inmate Acquitted at Re-Trial A jury in Arizona acquitted Christopher Huerstel of first-degree murder and of attempted armed robbery of a Tucson pizzeria in which 3 people were killed. Huerstel, who was 17-years-old at the time the crime was committed, was orignally convicted along with a co-defendant and both were sentenced to death in 2001. His conviction was overturned by the Arizona Supreme Court because of errors by the trial judge. The jury at the re-trial was unable to…

Capital Consequences: Families of the Condemned Tell Their Stories is a new book by Rachel King of the ACLU’s Capital Punishment Project. The book focuses on the impact that the death penalty has on the families of those who have been condemned to die. King, who also wrote Don’t Kill in Our Names: Families of Murder Victims Speak Out Against the Death Penalty, describes these individuals as the unseen victims of capital punishment and highlights the experience of having loved ones on death row…

“Hidden Victims,” a new book by sociologist Susan F. Sharp of the University of Oklahoma, examines the impact of capital punishment on the families of those facing execution. Through a series of in-depth interviews with families of the accused, Sharp illustrates from a sociological standpoint how family members and friends of those on death row are, in effect, indirect victims of the initial crime. The book emphasizes their responses to sentencing, as well as how they grieve and face an…

Richard Pompelio (pictured) established the New Jersey Crime Victims Law Center (VLC) in 1992 after his 17-year-old son Tony was murdered. VLC provides pro bono legal assistance to victims of violent crime. He recently wrote in the New Jersey Lawyer’s The Law & More column about the disservice that the death penalty represents to victims and their families: In my 15 years as a victims rights lawyer, I have represented many murder victim families in death penalty cases, and the additional…

Rob Warden, Executive Director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University School of Law, has written a book about one of the first accounts of a death penalty exoneration in the U.S. Wilkie Collins, a British author, had written a novel entitled ​“The Dead Alive” about the convictions and death sentences of Jesse and Stephen Boorn for a murder committed in 1819. They were later exonerated. Warden’s book is entitled ​“Wilkie Collins’s The Dead Alive: The Novel, the Case, and…

Professor Ray Paternoster of the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Maryland was the senior author of a 2003 state-commissioned review of the role that race and geography play in Maryland’s death penalty practice. He recently wrote about the study’s findings in the Baltimore Sun: I headed the Maryland research team that studied the fairness of the administration of the death penalty in the state. We concluded that race and geography were factors in the…

The Death Penalty Information Center has released its annual report on the status of capital punishment in the U.S. at the end of 2005. The report notes a dramatic drop in death sentences to the lowest level in 30 years. The year showed an increasing reliance on the sentence of life-without-parole as an alternative to the death penalty. New York’s legislature refused to restore the death penalty after its statute was declared unconstitutional, leaving life without parole as the punishment for…

A new book by Professor Austin Sarat (pictured) focuses on clemency’s role in the U.S. criminal justice system: ​“Mercy on Trial: What It Means to Stop an Execution.” According to U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy, ​“This thoughtful book should be read by every citizen who cares about the issue, and by every governor and president entrusted with the power to punish or pardon.” In ​“Mercy on Trial,” Sarat reviews the complexities of clemency and examines issues such as rehabilitation. (Princeton…

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is expanding its Capital Punishment Project to include litigation in addition to its already established public education efforts. The expanded program will be led by John Holdridge, who has been named the Capital Punishment Project’s new director. ​“John Holdridge is one of the nation’s premier death penalty litigators. He has fought the death penalty in courtrooms around the country for more than a decade and now brings that expertise and commitment to…