Publications & Testimony

New York’s high­est court has ruled that a pro­vi­sion of the state’s cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment statute vio­lates the state con­sti­tu­tion, a deci­sion that appears to inval­i­date the sen­tences of all four men on New York’s death row. In New York, if a jury dead­locks, the judge impos­es a sen­tence of 20 – 25 years to life, giv­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole. In its 4 – 3 rul­ing, the Court of Appeals said that these sen­tenc­ing rules might uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly coerce jurors into…

In an exclu­sive two-part series titled​“Snitch Work,” Philadelphia’s City Paper explores the pos­si­ble inno­cence of Pennsylvania death row inmate Walter Ogrod. Investigative writer Tom Lowenstein describes Ogrod’s first tri­al, which result­ed in a mis­tri­al when 11 of the 12 jurors vot­ed for acquit­tal. In Ogrod’s sec­ond tri­al in 1996, the state employed a noto­ri­ous jail­house snitch, John Hall, to strength­en their case against Ogrod, who con­tin­ued to main­tain his innocence.

In an edi­to­r­i­al writ­ten fol­low­ing the exe­cu­tion of Steven Oken in Maryland on June 17^th, The Washington Post crit­i­cized the state’s flawed death penal­ty sys­tem and ques­tioned what pur­pose cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment serves. The edi­to­r­i­al stat­ed: Steven Howard Oken went to his death this week in Maryland — the 1^st exe­cu­tion in the state in 6 years, the 1^st as well since Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) lift­ed his proces­sor’s mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions. Mr. Oken was as good…

Former Republican Senator John Danforth of Missouri, President Bush’s nom­i­nee to serve as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, is a long-time oppo­nent of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. During his tenure in the Senate, Danforth made his posi­tion on the death penal­ty clear in a 1994 Senate floor state­ment:​“I think we should do away with the death penal­ty. As a mat­ter of per­son­al con­science, I have always opposed the death penal­ty.… We have had up or down votes on capital…

A recent Dallas Morning News edi­to­r­i­al decried the use of expert wit­ness­es who claim to have the abil­i­ty to pre­dict future dan­ger­ous­ness, a deter­mi­na­tion that jurors in Texas heav­i­ly rely on in sen­tenc­ing peo­ple to death. The edi­to­r­i­al states: In Texas, we exe­cute crim­i­nals not for what they did, but for what they might do. Convicted mur­der­er David Harris has a date with the exe­cu­tion­er June 30 for hav­ing killed a man in a Beaumont gun­fight. But that’s not…

Applications for Soros Justice Advocacy, Senior and Media Fellowships are now being accept­ed by the Open Society Institute from lawyers, advo­cates, orga­niz­ers, schol­ars, jour­nal­ists and doc­u­men­tar­i­ans seek­ing to make advance­ments in crim­i­nal jus­tice. The dead­line for appli­cants is September 22, 2004. Proposed work should focus on reduc­ing the nation’s over reliance on poli­cies of pun­ish­ment and incar­cer­a­tion, encour­ag­ing the suc­cess­ful reset­tle­ment of people…

By Tom LowensteinPhiladelphia City PaperPART ONEAt the end of July 1988, there were two unsolved mur­ders of lit­tle girls in Northeast Philadelphia. Heather Coffin had been sex­u­al­ly assault­ed and mur­dered in 1987 in Frankford, and Barbara Jean Horn had been mur­dered on July 12, 1988, some­where near her house on Rutland Street, near Cottman Avenue. The police had a sus­pect in the Coffin mur­der, a 22-year-old named Raymond Sheehan,…

The 2^nd World Congress Against the Death Penalty will take place in Montreal, Canada, October 6 – 9, 2004. The con­fer­ence is spon­sored by Penal Reform International, the End to Capital Punishment Movement (ECPM USA), and the ECPM Network (Together Against the Death Penalty). During the four-day event, gov­ern­ment offi­cials, rep­re­sen­ta­tives from death penal­ty and law-relat­ed orga­ni­za­tions, and vic­tims’ fam­i­ly mem­bers from around the world will host a series of…

A recent study con­duct­ed by for­mer U.S. Attorney Thomas Sullivan and released by the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University School of Law con­clud­ed that elec­tron­ic record­ing of inter­ro­ga­tions of crim­i­nal sus­pects is a cost-effec­­tive method that results in more con­vic­tions and speed­i­er jus­tice. The researchers con­tact­ed 238 law enforce­ment agen­cies in 38 states that record inter­ro­ga­tions in felony crimes and found that​“vir­tu­al­ly…

The Angolite, a news mag­a­zine pro­duced by inmates at Louisiana’s Angola State Penitentiary, high­lights the com­mu­ta­tion of Herbert Welcome, a man with men­tal retar­da­tion whose death sen­tence was lift­ed by Governor Mike Foster in 2003. The arti­cle fol­lows Welcome’s decades-long strug­gle to have his sen­tence com­mut­ed, includ­ing a 1988 rec­om­men­da­tion for clemen­cy that was nev­er signed. Years lat­er, Welcome’s clemen­cy effort was reignit­ed by his attor­neys from the…