Publications & Testimony

Items: 5701 — 5710


Oct 01, 2004

Texas Police Chief Calls for Halt to Executions in Wake of Scandal

In the wake of a scan­dal that has called into ques­tion the reli­a­bil­i­ty of the police crime lab’s test­ing and han­dling of evi­dence in Harris County, Texas, Police Chief Harold Hurtt has said that exe­cu­tions of inmates from the coun­ty should not be sched­uled until all rel­e­vant evi­dence has been reex­am­ined to assure accu­ra­cy. He went on to note that the exe­cu­tions of nine indi­vid­u­als con­vict­ed in Harris County that are sched­uled to take place before March 2005 should not be…

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Sep 30, 2004

International Conference on the Death Penalty to Convene in Montreal

On October 6, the 2nd World Congress Against the Death Penalty will con­vene in Montreal, Canada. More than 1,000 par­tic­i­pants from around the world are expect­ed to gath­er at the city’s Place des Arts, includ­ing many U.S. pol­i­cy mak­ers and death penal­ty experts. Americans such as Mike Farrell, Barry Scheck, and sev­er­al death row exonerees will join inter­na­tion­al human rights lead­ers includ­ing for­mer U.N. High Commissioner on Human Rights Mary Robinson, Bianca Jagger, and actress…

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Sep 30, 2004

North Carolina Preparing to Execute Mentally Ill Man

Sammy Perkins is sched­uled for exe­cu­tion in North Carolina on October 8, despite his men­tal ill­ness and the fact that the jurors at his tri­al did not learn the extent of his dis­abil­i­ty. According to a press release from Perkins’s attor­neys: The jury nev­er heard the full sto­ry of Sammy Perkins’ men­tal dis­or­der: A fam­i­ly his­to­ry of psy­chi­atric prob­lems left its mark on Sammy Perkins. Several fam­i­ly mem­bers suf­fered from men­tal ill­ness­es. In his late teens and ear­ly twen­ties, the time when…

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Sep 29, 2004

Supreme Court to Hear Pennsylvania Death Penalty Case

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to hear a death row appeal from a Pennsylvania man who main­tains that jurors at his tri­al should have been told that they had the option of sen­tenc­ing him to life with­out parole instead of the death penal­ty. According to the brief filed on behalf of Ronald Rompilla, the jury asked sev­er­al ques­tions dur­ing his tri­al about Rompilla’s future dan­ger­ous­ness,” yet were nev­er told that if sen­tenced to prison he would nev­er be eli­gi­ble for lat­er release. The…

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Sep 29, 2004

Arkansas Execution Stayed, Raising New Legal Questions

The exe­cu­tion of Rickey Dale Newman in Arkansas, sched­uled for the night of September 28, was stayed by the state Supreme Court. Newman had waived his appeals. Nevertheless, there is evi­dence that he may be men­tal­ly retard­ed. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Atkins v. Virginia (2002) that peo­ple with men­tal retar­da­tion can­not be exe­cut­ed. Newman’s case rais­es the ques­tion of whether a third par­ty can inter­vene to request a stay of exe­cu­tion, even though the defen­dant does not want to appeal…

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Sep 28, 2004

Innocence Case Results in Prosecutor Reprimands

The North Carolina State bar has rep­ri­mand­ed two for­mer assis­tant attor­ney gen­er­als for with­hold­ing evi­dence that could have pre­vent­ed the wrong­ful con­vic­tion of Alan Gell, who was final­ly freed from death row in 2004 (pic­tured). The State Bar pan­el found that pros­e­cu­tors David Hoke and Debra Graves failed to turn over evi­dence to Gell, did not ade­quate­ly super­vise the con­duct of their chief inves­ti­ga­tor for the case, and brought the judi­cial sys­tem into dis­re­pute by their con­duct.

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Sep 28, 2004

NEW VOICES: Author of Arizona’s Death Penalty Law Has Second Thoughts

When Justice Sandra Day O’Connor was a sen­a­tor in Arizona, one of the peo­ple she asked to draft the state’s death penal­ty law was Rudolph Gerber. She request­ed that he write a law we can live with.” Mr. Gerber went on to become a pros­e­cu­tor, an Arizona tri­al judge, and even­tu­al­ly a judge on the Arizona Court of Appeals for 13 years. He recent­ly expressed his chang­ing views on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment as he expe­ri­enced how the law was put into prac­tice: My expe­ri­ence, not atyp­i­cal by any means,…

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Sep 27, 2004

NEW RESOURCE: Law Review Adresses Who Deserves Death?”

Articles from a sym­po­sium enti­tled Rethinking the Death Penalty: Can We Define Who Deserves Death?” can be found in the Fall 2003 edi­tion of the Pace Law Review. The sym­po­sium, host­ed by the Association of the Bar of the City of New York in May 2002, fea­tured speak­ers Robert Blecker, Jeffrey Kirchmeier, the Honorable William Erlbaum, David Von Drehle, and Jeffrey Fagan. The speak­ers addressed the ques­tion of whether it is pos­si­ble to lim­it the death penal­ty to the worst of the worst”…

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Sep 27, 2004

Highlights from DPIC’s New Innocence Report

HIGHLIGHTS FROM DPIC’s NEW INNOCENCE REPORT DPIC recent­ly released its lat­est report enti­tled Innocence and the Crisis in the American Death Penalty.” The report is avail­able from this Web site , or print­ed copies may be pur­chased by email­ing DPIC . Some high­lights from the report include: 116 inmates have been exon­er­at­ed and freed from death row in 25 states since 1973. These defen­dants togeth­er spent over 1,000 years incar­cer­at­ed between their…

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Sep 27, 2004

Death penalty for minors: Cruel and unusual

American Medical NewsSeptember 27, 2004 Death penal­ty for minors: Cruel and unusu­al As the Supreme Court hears argu­ments on using the death penal­ty against minors, the AMA joins the voic­es of sci­ence and inter­na­tion­al leaders against…

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