Publications & Testimony

According to the latest edition of Death Row USA published by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF), the size of death row decreased again as of April 1, 2005. After increasing steadily for about 25 years, the death row population started decreasing in 2000. The current total for state and federal death rows is 3,452. On October 1, 2002, LDF reported a death row population of 3,697. This latest report counts 72 offenders who were juveniles at the time of their crime, though these…

Kenyan Justice Minister Kiraitu Murungi announced that those on the nation’s death row will soon have their sentences commuted to life imprisonment. Murungi noted that he is working closely with Kenya’s President’s Office to bring the nation into compliance with its obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. ​“We are committed to abolishing the death penalty. The death sentence is a violation of the right to life,” he said. In the 1970s, Kenya argued that the…

“Hidden Victims,” a new book by sociologist Susan F. Sharp of the University of Oklahoma, examines the impact of capital punishment on the families of those facing execution. Through a series of in-depth interviews with families of the accused, Sharp illustrates from a sociological standpoint how family members and friends of those on death row are, in effect, indirect victims of the initial crime. The book emphasizes their responses to sentencing, as well as how they grieve and face an…

Preliminary data from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report for 2004 found that murders in the U. S. dropped last year by 3.6%. The number of executions also declined in 2004. In 2003, the South had the highest murder rate in the country, and that appeared to continue in 2004 even as the South carried out 85% of the nation’s executions. The Northeast, which had no executions in 2004, had the lowest murder rate in 2003 and that position appeared to remain the same in 2004. The FBI’s final crime report…

In its recent study of Ohio’s death penalty, the Associated Press found that of the 1,936 capital indictments filed statewide from 1981 – 2002, about 50% ended in plea bargains. Of those cases, 131 people who pleaded guilty in exchange for escaping the death penalty were charged with killing multiple victims. By contrast, 196 of the 274 people who were sentenced to death row during the same 21-year time span were convicted of killing a single victim. The AP’s Ohio findings were similar to figures…

Death row inmates from around the country will present a $5,000 college scholarship to Zach Osborne, the brother of a 4‑year-old murder victim, who plans to attend East Carolina University to pursue a career in law enforcement. The scholarship is an annual award given by those on death row who participate in the publication of ​“Compassion,” a newsletter that provides a forum for communication between convicted offenders and murder victims’ families. Each year, a murder victim’s family member is…

A recent investigation led by a former Justice Department official reported that analysts at the Houston Crime Lab fabricated findings in at least four drug cases, including one in which a scientist failed to conduct testing before issuing conclusions to support police suspicions — an illegal practice known as ​“drylabbing.” The report contains some of the most serious allegations made yet against the Houston Crime Lab and is the first to criticize the lab’s largest division, controlled…

In a proposed amendment to its penal code, Indian leaders are seeking to implement a change that would end the nation’s death penalty even ​“in the rarest of rare” cases. The amended Indian Penal Code would abolish the death penalty and replace it with a strict life without the possibility of parole measure. Currently, the nation’s life sentence statute only requires imprisonment for 14 years. The decision to seek an official end to capital punishment fulfills a pledge made by the chairman of…

On May 31, 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to consider the constitutionality of Kansas’ death penalty law. The current statute requires that a death sentence be imposed when a jury finds that the aggravating and mitigating circumstances surrounding the crime have equal weight (i.e., a tie results in death). When reviewing Michael Marsh’s death sentence in 2004, the Kansas Supreme Court ruled that the state’s statute was unconstitutional, holding that the above process did not comport with…

The North Carolina House of Representatives will soon vote on a two-year moratorium on executions in the state while the death penalty is studied. A moratorium bill passed the full Senate in 2003, but had been previously blocked from coming to a vote in the House. The House Judiciary Committee will likely consider the moratorium measure on Tuesday, May 31. The committee’s approval could mean a full House vote on the legislation as early as that same day. The full House is then required to…