Publications & Testimony

The FBI recent­ly released its Uniform Crime Report for 2003. The num­ber of mur­ders in the United States increased slight­ly from 16,229 to 16,503. Once again, the South had the high­est mur­der rate (6.9 mur­ders per 100,000 peo­ple). In 2003, the South car­ried out 89% of the exe­cu­tions in the coun­try. The Northeast had the low­est mur­der rate in the coun­try (4.2 mur­ders per 100,000 peo­ple) and car­ried out no exe­cu­tions in 2003. (2003 FBI Uniform Crime Report, October 27, 2004 (exe­cu­tion…

President Bush signed into law the Justice for All Act (H.R.5107) that includes a ver­sion of the Innocence Protection Act. The bill was co-spon­sored by Senators Patrick Leahy (D‑Vt.) and Orrin Hatch (R.-Ut.). It will cre­ate a post-con­vic­tion test­ing process to pro­tect inno­cent defen­dants and pro­vide train­ing funds for the defense and pros­e­cu­tion in death penal­ty cas­es. (Salt Lake Tribune, Nov. 2, 2004). See the Justice Project for more details on the…

Dominique Green was exe­cut­ed in Texas on October 26 despite calls for a stay from a fed­er­al judge, Nobel Peace Prize win­ner Desmond Tutu, and the vic­tim’s fam­i­ly. A U.S. District Court judge in Houston had post­poned the exe­cu­tion until the city’s police depart­ment could com­plete cat­a­loging 280 box­es of recent­ly dis­cov­ered evi­dence that could impact thou­sands of crim­i­nal cas­es. That stay was over­turned by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Green had admit­ted that he was present…

The Justice for All Act of 2004, Public Law No: 108 – 405, became law on October 30, 2004, and affects the death penal­ty by cre­at­ing a DNA test­ing pro­gram and autho­riz­ing grants to states for cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tion and cap­i­tal defense improve­ment. Specifically, the…

According to an Iranian jus­tice depart­ment spokesper­son, the Iranian Parliament is expect­ed to approve leg­is­la­tion that would end the death penal­ty for offend­ers under the age of 18. The mea­sure would also pro­hib­it lash­ings for those under 18. Under pres­sure from the European Union to reform its human rights record, Iran has had no record­ed ston­ings since late 2002, and the par­lia­ment has enact­ed laws ban­ning tor­ture and the uphold­ing of cit­i­zens’ rights. (AFP, October 26, 2004). The U.S.

Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, the Catholic Archbishop of Washington and act­ing as Chairman of the Domestic Policy Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, has urged House and Senate con­fer­ees work­ing on anti-ter­ror­ism leg­is­la­tion to report out a final bill that would not expand the fed­er­al death penal­ty for ter­ror­ists. McCarrick wrote a let­ter to House and Senate lead­ers craft­ing their final ver­sion of the National Intelligence Reform Act (S. 2845).

As Maryland Circuit Court Judge Steven I. Platt signed a death war­rant sched­ul­ing the exe­cu­tion of Heath W. Burch for the week of December 6, a Potomac Inc. poll of state res­i­dents revealed that only 53% sup­port cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Burch has been on death row since 1996 and would be the first per­son since 1953 to be exe­cut­ed for a crime com­mit­ted in Prince George’s County. Experts pre­dict that his exe­cu­tion would be met with resis­tance from coun­ty res­i­dents, 50% of whom oppose capital…

During a recent speech at Georgetown Law School, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor empha­sized the grow­ing impor­tance of inter­na­tion­al law in U.S. courts, say­ing judges would be neg­li­gent if they dis­re­gard­ed its impor­tance in a post-September 11^th world of height­ened ten­sions. O’Connor said the Supreme Court is tak­ing cas­es that demand a bet­ter under­stand­ing of for­eign legal sys­tems, not­ing, ​“International law is no longer a spe­cial­ty. … It is vital if judges are to faithfully…

Judge Tom Price, a 30-year vet­er­an Republican jurist on Texas’s high­est crim­i­nal court, recent­ly stat­ed that those on the state’s death row con­vict­ed with evi­dence from the Houston Police Department crime lab should not be exe­cut­ed until ques­tions about its work are resolved. Price called for a lim­it­ed mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions, say­ing, ​“I think it would be pru­dent to delay fur­ther exe­cu­tions until we have had a chance to have this evi­dence inde­pen­dent­ly ver­i­fied. Once a death sentence…