Publications & Testimony

Roanoke Times…

A clemen­cy let­ter-writ­ing cam­paign orga­nized by Alabama death row pris­on­ers on behalf of James Barney Hubbard, an ail­ing 74-year-old man who is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed on August 5^th, was recent­ly halt­ed by Department of Correction author­i­ties at Donaldson Prison. Just two months before Hubbard’s sched­uled exe­cu­tion, Willie Dorrell Minor wrote a clemen­cy peti­tion to Alabama Governor Robert Riley. He planned to have the peti­tion ask­ing Riley to spare Hubbard’s life signed…

A new report released by the Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury rec­om­mend­ed changes to the state’s cost­ly death penal­ty and called into ques­tion its effec­tive­ness in pre­vent­ing crime. The Office of Research not­ed that it lacked suf­fi­cient data to accu­rate­ly account for the total cost of cap­i­tal tri­als, stat­ing that​“because cost and time records were not main­tained, the Office of Research was unable to deter­mine the total, com­pre­hen­sive cost of the death penalty…

The…

The Republican (Springfield,…

The Press Democrat (Santa…

Miami…

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…