Publications & Testimony

U.S. SUPREME COURT: AMICUS BRIEFS FILED IN LANDMARK CASEOn July 19, 2004, ami­cus briefs in sup­port of end­ing the exe­cu­tion of juve­nile offend­ers were filed in Roper v. Simmons (No. 03 – 0633) that will decide whether the exe­cu­tion of juve­nile defen­dants is a vio­la­tion of the Eighth Ammendment. In addi­tion to the defen­dan­t’s brief, ami­cus briefs were…

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, for­mer Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev, med­ical experts, and 48 nations are among those who filed friend-of-the-court briefs on Monday (July 19) urg­ing the U.S. Supreme Court to end the juve­nile death penal­ty. The Court is sched­uled to hear argu­ments this fall in Roper v. Simmons, a case that will deter­mine the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of exe­cut­ing juve­nile offend­ers. The U.S. is one of only a hand­ful of nations around the…

The New York League of Women Voters has urged state law­mak­ers not to attempt a​“quick fix” solu­tion to the state’s flawed death penalty law. ​“We now have a unique oppor­tu­ni­ty to re-exam­­ine the use of the death penal­ty in New York,” said Marcia Merrins, pres­i­dent of the League of Women Voters. In June 2004, the New York Court of Appeals declared the state’s death penal­ty uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. The League of Women’s Voter’s, which plans to host a series of capital…

The award-win­n­ing doc­u­men­tary​“Deadline,” which takes view­ers direct­ly into the emo­tion­al and legal storm sur­round­ing for­mer Illinois Governor George Ryan’s extra­or­di­nary deci­sion to com­mute the death sen­tences of all those on death row, will air on NBC dur­ing a spe­cial 2‑hour​“Dateline” pro­gram at 8 p.m. on July 30^th. The Big Mouth Productions doc­u­men­tary has gained wide­spread crit­i­cal acclaim and it was fea­tured at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival.

A study con­duct­ed by the U.S. Navy and Yale University found that eye­wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny is often large­ly inac­cu­rate, even when vic­tims get a long look at vio­lent crim­i­nals, and police and juries may be giv­ing this evi­dence too much cred­i­bil­i­ty. After a unique study of 509 Navy and Marine offi­cers under­go­ing high-lev­­el and low-lev­­el stress dur­ing elite hostage sur­vival train­ing at Fort Bragg, N.C., researchers dis­cov­ered that few of the participating top…

European Union for­eign min­is­ters have urged Iraq’s inter­im gov­ern­ment not to rein­state cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment as it con­tin­ues to devel­op the nation’s justice system. ​“The European Union recon­firms its oppo­si­tion to the death penal­ty in all cas­es,” the min­is­ters said in a draft state­ment to Iraq Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari. ​“The mes­sage has been very clear … We have this pol­i­cy, and we will main­tain this pol­i­cy,” said Dutch Foreign Minister…

The Death Penalty Information Center has new Web resources to assist edu­ca­tors and those fol­low­ing recent court devel­op­ments relat­ed to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment: 1) DPIC’s revised Educational Curriculum on the Death Penalty is an excel­lent tool for TEACHERS plan­ning to involve their stu­dents in the upcom­ing nation­al focus on juve­niles and the death penal­ty. See also DPIC’s Web page on Roper v. Simmons and an overview of the Juvenile Death Penalty. 2) The Supreme Court…

In an editorial entitled ​“Too Many Questions” that fol­lowed a two-part news series exam­in­ing new infor­ma­tion that casts doubt on the guilt of Ohio death row inmate John Spirko, the Mansfield News Journal of Ohio called for a re-exam­­i­­na­­tion of Spirko’s case before the state allows an exe­cu­tion to go for­ward. A fed­er­al judge in the same case has said he has con­sid­er­able doubts about the law­ful­ness of the case against Spirko. The edi­to­r­i­al not­ed: It’s…

The lat­est edi­tion of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund’s quar­ter­ly pub­li­ca­tion​“Death Row USA” is now avail­able on DPIC’s Web site. The April 2004 report reveals a con­tin­u­ing decline in the num­ber of indi­vid­u­als on death row in the United States. The cur­rent pop­u­la­tion of 3,487 is 17 less than the 3,504 indi­vid­u­als report­ed in January 2004 and 210 few­er than the 3,697 report­ed in October 2002.​“Death Row USA” pro­vides a com­pre­hen­sive look at the…

In a let­ter to the North Carolina House of Representatives, 21 fam­i­ly mem­bers of mur­der vic­tims voiced their con­cerns about the state’s error-rid­­den death penal­ty sys­tem and urged mem­bers to pass leg­is­la­tion that would impose a two-year mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions while a study is con­duct­ed.​“We are trou­bled by cas­es in which inad­e­quate rep­re­sen­ta­tion or pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct led to inno­cent peo­ple being sent to our North Carolina Death Row. We are…