Publications & Testimony

A&E tele­vi­sion host and well-known inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ist Bill Kurtis chron­i­cles his jour­ney from death penal­ty sup­port­er to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment oppo­nent in his new­ly released book, The Death Penalty on Trial: Crisis in American Justice. In an inter­view with the Kansas City Star, Kurtis stat­ed, ​“Look, I was for the death penal­ty, but look­ing at these cas­es and the rapid­ly increas­ing num­ber of exon­er­a­tions, there are just too many possibilities for…

Premeditated: Meditations on Capital Punishment, Recent Works by Malaquias Montoya is a new art exhi­bi­tion cat­a­logue fea­tur­ing recent­ly cre­at­ed silkscreen images, paint­ings, and relat­ed research deal­ing with the death penal­ty and pris­ons. The works fea­tured in this book are part of a col­lec­tion of art that is cur­rent­ly tour­ing the United States. Montoya has lec­tured and taught at numer­ous uni­ver­si­ties and col­leges in the San Francisco Bay Area, includ­ing Stanford, UC Berkeley and UC Davis.

While applaud­ing a life-sen­tence plea bar­gain arranged by Palm Beach County’s State Attorney in an espe­cial­ly heinous mur­der, the Palm Beach Post said the state had ​“forfeit[ed] the moral stand­ing to exe­cute any­one else.” The State Attorney said that he agreed to let the defen­dant plead guilty to killing 5 peo­ple because the life-with­out-parole sent­nece will bring final­i­ty. The Post not­ed: ​“The state saves not only the cost of a tri­al; the vic­tims’ rel­a­tives — who supported…

In its annu­al eclec­tic col­lec­tion of ideas from the past year, The New York Times Magazine includ­ed the ​“Foolproof Death Penalty” propsed by Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. The Times attempts ​“to salute the absurd­ly wide range of human orig­i­nal­i­ty” and culls its entries not only from main­stream sources but also from the ​“tat­too cul­ture and fast food man­age­ment, hor­ti­cul­ture and shoe design.” In response to Romney’s notion of ​“error-free cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment,” Berkeley law professor…

According to a recent poll con­duct­ed by the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, only 62% of respon­dents sup­port cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment for per­sons con­vict­ed of mur­der, and Americans pre­fer the sen­tenc­ing option of life with­out parole when giv­en the choice. Overall sup­port for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment has fall­en since Quinnipiac’s poll in June 2004, when sup­port reg­is­tered 65%. Similar shifts in pub­lic opin­ion found grow­ing sup­port for life-with­out-parole sen­tences. In the December poll when…

California already has the largest death row in the coun­try and is now plan­ning to build a new $220 mil­lion facil­i­ty designed to house more than 1,400 death row inmates. State Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald M. George said that the large death row reflects the con­se­quences of a care­ful appeals process that is designed to ensure due process for those fac­ing exe­cu­tion. ​“The virtues of the sys­tem also rep­re­sent its vices because it does end up caus­ing a lot of delay,” stat­ed the Chief…

The Kansas Supreme Court has ruled that the state’s 1994 death penal­ty law is uncon­sti­tu­tion­al because it con­tains a pro­vi­sion giv­ing the state an advan­tage when jurors find the aggra­vat­ing and mit­i­gat­ing fac­tors pre­sent­ed at sen­tenc­ing to be equal. In that cir­cum­stance, the cur­rent law states that the defen­dant must be sen­tenced to death. The Court ruled that such a pro­vi­sion does not allow the jury to express a rea­soned moral response to the evi­dence, and the process does not comport…

As New York law­mak­ers con­duct­ed the first in a series of hear­ings on the state’s death penal­ty, Robert M. Morgenthau, Manhattan’s long-serv­ing District Attorney, rec­om­mend­ed that New York aban­don the prac­tice: ​“It’s the deed that teach­es, not the name we give it,” Morgenthau said, quot­ing George Bernard Shaw. He went on to note, ​“The penal­ty exacts a ter­ri­ble price in dol­lars, lives, and human decen­cy. Rather than tamp­ing down the flames of vio­lence, it fuels them.…I urge all of our…

Andrew Cuomo (pic­tured), who served as U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development from 1997 to 2001, recent­ly urged New York law­mak­ers to put an end to the death penal­ty. The state is hold­ing hear­ings on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the wake of a N.Y. Court of Appeals deci­sion find­ing the statute uncon­sti­tu­tion­al ear­li­er this year. In his op-ed in The New York Times, Cuomo not­ed: The Democrats, who con­trol the Assembly, should make it clear that they will not pass a new death penal­ty law. This…

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACTSWednesday, September 15, 2004Brenda Bowser, 202.293.6970 (O), 301.906.4460 (Cell)Valerie Holford, 202.365.5336(Additional Contacts Listed Below)DPIC ISSUES NEW INNOCENCE REPORT: 116 NOW FREED FROM DEATH ROW IN 25 STATESPublic Response Measured in Declines in Death Sentencing, Death Row, Executions, and Opinion PollsWASHINGTON, DC – The Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) is issu­ing a new…