Publications & Testimony

Texas plans to exe­cute David Harris on June 30^th on the basis of a pre­dic­tion in 1986 that he would be a future dan­ger even if sen­tenced to life in prison. Dr. Edward Gripon tes­ti­fied that Harris posed a sub­stan­tial risk of com­mit­ting fur­ther vio­lent acts, even though Gripon had nev­er met or exam­ined Harris. During his near­ly two decades on death row, Harris has had only minor infrac­tions, such as hav­ing too many postage stamps or hang­ing a clothesline…

After delib­er­at­ing for 20 hours over three days, the jurors who recent­ly found Terry Nichols (pic­tured) guilty of mur­der in the 1995 Oklahoma City bomb­ing expressed some of the anguish that choos­ing between life and death caused them. ​“It was tough. We had found it much eas­i­er to arrive at a guilty ver­dict, but the penal­ty phase was much hard­er,” said juror Terry Zellmer. Cecil Reeder, a Korean War vet­er­an who sup­port­ed the death penal­ty for Nichols, said, ​“This…

As Maryland pre­pares for the exe­cu­tion of Steven Oken this week, two Maryland par­ents whose daugh­ter was mur­dered six years ago pro­vid­ed a vic­tims’ fam­i­ly per­spec­tive on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in The Washington Post:​“Oken com­mit­ted the crimes for which he is sen­tenced to die back in 1987. Anyone who has seen the sur­vivors of vic­tims feels sor­row for the pain they have had to bear as the case has worn on. But the death penal­ty holds lit­tle promise of helping survivors…

A Kentucky pros­e­cu­tor raised reli­gious objec­tions to the death penal­ty in ask­ing to step aside in the case of two men charged with mur­der. J. Stewart Schneider, the com­mon­wealth’s attor­ney in Boyd County in north­east­ern Kentucky, said Thursday he filed his motion to with­draw from the case after reflec­tions at a reli­gious retreat. Schneider also is a min­is­ter with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).​“I spent that week­end in prayer,” he said.​“The more I thought…

NEW GALLUP POLL RESULTS Over the years, sup­port for the sen­tence of Life Without Parole as an alter­na­tive to the death penal­ty has steadi­ly increased, to the point where now the coun­try is even­ly split on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. In 1994, only 32% favored Life, with 50% favor­ing death. In 2004, sup­port for life with­out parole had grown to 46%. In less than 20 years, pub­lic opin­ion regarding the…

Three new items have been added to DPIC’s Web site, includ­ing a sum­ma­ry of a new report from The Sentencing Project, the com­plete results of a recent North Carolina poll, and an updat­ed​“Special Resources from DPIC” Web page: 1. A sum­ma­ry of impor­tant facts from The Sentencing Project’s new report:​“The Meaning of​‘Life’: Long Prison Sentences in Context.” For exam­ple, the report notes that the use of life-with­­out-parole sen­tences has expand­ed sig­nif­i­cant­ly – of the lifers…

In a unan­i­mous vote that will soon add their nation to a lengthy list of coun­tries around the world that have either halt­ed exe­cu­tions or aban­doned cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment alto­geth­er, the low­er house of Tajikistan’s Parliament has adopt­ed a mora­to­ri­um on the death penal­ty. Passage by the upper house and the sig­na­ture of the President are reportedly assured.

Professor emer­i­tus James J. Megivern of the University of North Carolina at Wilmington exam­ines the shift in Roman Catholic Church teach­ing regard­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in​“Judge Noonan, Church Change, and the Death Penalty,” pub­lished by the University of St. Thomas Law Journal. In the arti­cle, Megivern out­lines Judge John T. Noonan’s remarks on this issue and pro­vides addi­tion­al insight about the his­tor­i­cal mile­stones that have occurred as the Church began to issue…

A May 2004 poll by the polit­i­cal con­sult­ing firm of Ayres McHenry and Associates found that 66% of respon­dents sup­port cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment for mur­der, a fig­ure that reflects the low­er sup­port for the death penal­ty found in sev­er­al polls tak­en in 2003. (Ayres McHenry and Associates, May 2004) In 2003, polling results pub­lished by Gallup Poll, ABC News, and the Pew Research Center all mea­sured sup­port for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment at 64%, sig­nif­i­cant­ly below the public’s…

As the U.S. Supreme Court pre­pares to hear argu­ments in Roper v. Simmons regard­ing the death penal­ty for juve­nile offend­ers, researchers have found crit­i­cal evi­dence that the brain con­tin­ues to change dra­mat­i­cal­ly dur­ing ado­les­cence. This research may help explain the impul­sive, often irra­tional behav­ior seen in some teenagers.​“Kids may know the dif­fer­ence between right and wrong, but that does not stop them from doing dumb and dan­ger­ous things that they would…