Publications & Testimony

A clemency petition filed with Virginia Governor Mark Warner on behalf of Robin Lovitt, who is scheduled to be executed on November 30, has gained the backing of some of the state’s most conservative voices. Among those encouraging Warner to commute Lovitt’s sentence to life are former Republican Virginia attorney general Mark L. Earley, Rutherford Institute founder John W. Whitehead, and Lovitt’s attorney Kenneth Starr, who now serves as dean of the Pepperdine University School of Law. In May…

Dr. Richard Land, President of the Ethics and Religious Liberties Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention and a strong death penalty supporter in the past, recently said that support is only warranted if the death penalty is applied fairly. ​“If you are going to support the death penalty then you have to be as supportive of its equitable and just application,” Land said. He noted that it would be immoral to support capital punishment otherwise. Land added that in the United States, a…

A New Jersey Policy Perspectives report concluded that the state’s death penalty has cost taxpayers $253 million since 1983, a figure that is over and above the costs that would have been incurred had the state utilized a sentence of life without parole instead of death. The study examined the costs of death penalty cases to prosecutor offices, public defender offices, courts, and correctional facilities. The report’s authors said that the cost estimate is ​“very conservative” because other…

A two-part investigative series by the Houston Chronicle casts serious doubt on the guilt of a Texas man who was executed in 1993. Ruben Cantu had persistently proclaimed his innocence and was only 17 when he was charged with capital murder for the shooting death of a San Antonio man during an attempted robbery. Now, the prosecutor and the jury forewoman have expressed doubts about the case. Moreover, both a key eyewitness in the state’s case against Cantu and Cantu’s co-defendant have come…

Harold Wilson is the 6^th Person Exonerated in Pennsylvania More than 16 years after a Pennsylvania jury returned three death sentences against Harold Wilson, new DNA evidence has led to his acquittal. During Wilson’s 1989 capital trial, the prosecution used racially discriminatory practices in selecting the jury. In 1999, Wilson’s death sentence was overturned when a court determined that his defense counsel had failed to investigate and present mitigating evidence during his original trial.

A new edition of the Catholic University Law Review includes papers from the university’s recent symposium on mental illness and the death penalty. The presentations by experts delivered during the symposium address how policy makers and the courts might resolve the propriety of executing those with mental illness. Articles examine recommendations from the Task Force of the ABA’s Section of Individual Rights and Reponsibilities regarding mental disabilities and the death penalty. Authors also…

Incarceration and Crime: A Complex Relationship, a new report by The Sentencing Project, examines the financial and social costs of incarceration, and evaluates the limited effectiveness it has on crime rates. The report notes that the number of people incarcerated in the United States has risen by more than 500% over the past three decades, up from 330,000 people in 1972 to 2.1 million people today. Though an increase in the number of offenders who are incarcerated has played a modest role in…

More than 16 years after a Pennsylvania jury returned three death sentences against Harold Wilson (pictured), new DNA evidence has helped lead to his acquittal. Yesterday, Wilson became the nation’s 122^nd person freed from death row according to the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC). During his 1989 capital trial, Wilson was prosecuted by former Philadelphia Assistant District Attorney Jack McMahon, a man best known for his role in a training video that advised new Philadelphia…

A bill to reinstate the death penalty in Massachusetts was rejected by the House of Representatives, ending Governor Mitt Romney’s effort to establish a ​“gold standard” for capital punishment. House members defeated the measure by a vote of 100 – 53 after four hours of floor debate. Romney had described the bill as ​“foolproof,” stating that it contained strict safeguards that could protect against wrongful convictions and that the narrow scope of the bill meant that the death penalty would be…

U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill recently announced that he is rethinking capital punishment because it is expensive, can be politically motivated, and risks innocent lives. Winmill, who freed death row exoneree Charles Fain in 2001 after DNA evidence proved his innocence, said that Fain’s case and the very different experience of sentencing a guilty man to die for murder prompted him to rethink capital punishment. During a speech before the City Club of Boise, Winmill was joined by Fain as…