Publications & Testimony

Despite broad bipar­ti­san Congressional sup­port for the Advancing Justice Through DNA Technology Act, which includes the ​“Innocence Protection Act” (IPA) to help states pay for the costs of post-con­vic­tion DNA test­ing, the Senate Judiciary Committee has delayed action on the bill. Kirk Bloodsworth (pic­tured), whose name accom­pa­nies the IPA, urged Congress to act: ​“Nobody should have to wait for jus­tice. I strug­gled for near­ly 20 years to clear my name. This leg­is­la­tion will prevent innocent…

A fed­er­al judge has over­turned one of California’s old­est death sen­tences based on his find­ing that the 1979 tri­al of Earl Lloyd Jackson was taint­ed by unre­li­able jail­house infor­mants and poor rep­re­sen­ta­tion. ​“The spe­cial cir­cum­stance find­ing and the death sen­tences in this case rest on an evi­den­tiary foun­da­tion con­struct­ed large­ly from the false tes­ti­mo­ny of two jail­house infor­mants,” wrote U.S. District Judge Edward Rafeedie in his rul­ing. Rafeedie fur­ther found a ​“dere­lic­tion of…

The University of Cincinnati’s Center for Law and Justice will be inau­gu­rat­ing its Innocence Week begin­ning September 14^th. The week of activ­i­ties cen­tered on wrong­ful con­vic­tions will include a pre­sen­ta­tion by Scott Hornoff, a police offi­cer from Rhode Island who was wrong­ly con­vict­ed of mur­der before being freed on the basis of DNA, pre­sen­ta­tions by DNA expert Barry Scheck, and per­for­mances of the award-win­ning play The Exonerated. The Center for Law and Justice is best known for…

Of the 63 death sen­tences hand­ed down since New Jersey rein­stat­ed cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in 1982, 47 have been over­turned, includ­ing that of Robert Marshall, whose death sen­tence was reversed on April 8^th by a fed­er­al court. Marshall had been on New Jersey’s death row longer than any oth­er inmate pri­or to the vacat­ing of his sen­tence. New Jersey has not car­ried out an exe­cu­tion since bring­ing back the death penal­ty. It cur­rent­ly has 11 inmates on death row, and no exe­cu­tions are sched­uled at this…

The Bureau of Justice Statistics’ Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics 2002 con­tains its lat­est cat­a­log of data on crime, the admin­is­tra­tion of jus­tice, and pub­lic atti­tudes toward crim­i­nal jus­tice issues such as the death penal­ty. For exam­ple, a grow­ing num­ber of Americans sup­port the sen­tence of life with­out parole over the death penal­ty. In 1985, a Gallup Poll found that 34% of those polled favored life in prison with­out parole. This lat­est edi­tion of the Sourcebook…

A fed­er­al judge in Memphis has blocked the exe­cu­tion of Philip Workman (pic­tured), a Tennessee man who has been on death row for more than 20 years despite evi­dence that he did not shoot the vic­tim who was killed. Workman’s exe­cu­tion, sched­uled for September 22, was delayed pend­ing the results of a fed­er­al review of anoth­er Tennessee case that could affect Workman’s lat­est appeals. (New Channel 5 News in Tennessee, September 2, 2004). Workman was con­vict­ed in 1981 of the mur­der of police…

The Summer 2004 Drake Law Review includes arti­cles based on a recent Symposium on Wrongful Convictions fea­tur­ing some of the nation’s lead­ing experts on inno­cence and the death penal­ty. The arti­cles pro­vide a detailed overview of the issue of inno­cence and exam­ine wrong­ful con­vic­tions from a num­ber of per­sec­tives, includ­ing the role of crim­i­nal case review in cor­rect­ing mis­car­riages of jus­tice, the need to record police inter­ro­ga­tions, the impact of inno­cence on vic­tims’ family…

By a vote of 23 – 12, the California Senate passed a res­o­lu­tion estab­lish­ing the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice, a pan­el of experts who will inves­ti­gate the state’s crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem and present a series of rec­om­men­da­tions to the leg­is­la­ture and gov­er­nor based on their find­ings. Members of the pan­el will be appoint­ed by the Senate Committee on Rules and will be charged with hold­ing a series of meet­ings and pub­lic hear­ings to deter­mine why innocent…

An op-ed in Oregon’s Albany Democrat Herald called on the state to re-think its reliance on the death penal­ty: 20 years after vot­ers in Oregon rein­stat­ed the death penal­ty, it is time to take a dis­pas­sion­ate look and con­clude that it has­n’t done much good. In the gen­er­al elec­tion of 1984, Oregon vot­ers over­whelm­ing­ly called for the death penal­ty to be resumed. 2 ini­tia­tives were on the bal­lot that year. One, call­ing for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment or manda­to­ry life sen­tences for aggravated murder,…

The dis­cov­ery of 280 unopened and mis­la­beled box­es of evi­dence found in the Houston Crime Lab’s prop­er­ty room could impact as many as 8,000 cas­es, includ­ing many cas­es where defen­dants have sought evi­dence to prove their inno­cence. Investigators began sort­ing through the box­es this month, find­ing an array of evi­dence that ranged from a fetus and human body parts to clothes and a bag of Cheetos. Although the box­es were locat­ed near­ly a year ago, the cat­a­loging of their con­tents has just begun…