Publications & Testimony

A May 2004 Gallup Poll found that a grow­ing num­ber of Americans sup­port a sen­tence of life with­out parole rather than the death penal­ty for those con­vict­ed of mur­der. Gallup found that 46% of respon­dents favor life impris­on­ment over the death penal­ty, up from 44% in May 2003. During that same time frame, sup­port for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment as an alter­na­tive fell from 53% to 50%. The poll also revealed a grow­ing skep­ti­cism that the death penal­ty deters crime, with 62% of those polled…

A report released in May, 2004 by The Sentencing Project, ​“The Meaning of ​‘Life’: Long Prison Sentences in Context,” doc­u­ments a dra­mat­ic increase in the num­ber of pris­on­ers serv­ing life with­out parole sen­tences and demon­strates that pris­on­ers are serv­ing increas­ing­ly longer terms of incar­cer­a­tion. Findings in the report include the…

Gordon ​“Randy” Steidl is sched­uled to be freed from an Illinois prison today (May 28^th), 17 years after he was wrong­ly con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to die for the 1986 mur­ders of Dyke and Karen Rhoads. He will be the nation’s 114^th death row inmate to be exon­er­at­ed and the 18^th freed in Illinois. The case against Steidl has long drawn crit­i­cism from jour­nal­ists such as Eric Zorn of the Chicago Tribune, and inves­ti­ga­tors famil­iar with the facts of the crime. An Illinois State Police…

“Death Penalty – Beyond Abolition” details the path to abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty in Europe, the only region in the world where cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment has been almost com­plete­ly erad­i­cat­ed. The book also exam­ines how this devel­op­ment has impact­ed oth­er nations around the world. With arti­cles focus­ing on issues such as work­ing with mur­der vic­tims’ fam­i­lies and find­ing appro­pri­ate alter­na­tives to the death penal­ty, the book exam­ines the pio­neer­ing role that the…

In the 11 years since the Defender Association of Philadelphia began to rep­re­sent clients fac­ing mur­der charges, it has com­piled an envi­able record: Not one of its 994 clients has been sent to death row. (During the same time, scores of defen­dants in Philadelphia rep­re­sent­ed by appoint­ed pri­vate attor­neys have been sen­tenced to death.) ​“It stands out as some­thing that is not matched any­where else,” said David J. Carroll of the National Legal Aid and Defender Service. The Defender Association…

Texas Governor Rick Perry has issued a par­don on the basis of inno­cence to Josiah Sutton, a juve­nile offend­er who had served four years of a 25-year prison term before new DNA tests proved his inno­cence. The faulty DNA results used to con­vict Sutton in 1998 were processed by the now thor­ough­ly dis­cred­it­ed Houston Police Department crime lab, the same facil­i­ty that processed DNA and oth­er foren­sic evi­dence used in cas­es that have result­ed in death sen­tences. The lab was shut down in…

Maryland pros­e­cu­tors used the same DNA evi­dence that freed Kirk Bloodsworth (pic­tured) from Maryland’s death row to secure a life-in-prison sen­tence for Kimberly Shay Ruffner, the man who has now con­fessed to the 1984 mur­der of Dawn Hamilton. Bloodsworth spent years on death row for the rape and mur­der of Hamilton before DNA evi­dence con­clu­sive­ly showed that he could not have com­mit­ted the crime. In 1993, he became the first death row inmate in the coun­try to be freed on the basis of DNA…

In 1993, when 17-year-old Christopher Simmons abduct­ed and mur­dered his neigh­bor, lit­tle did he know that some of the nation’s top brain researchers and psy­chi­a­trists would one day rush to his defense before the Supreme…

Great Britain may refuse to hand over evi­dence of Saddam Hussein’s crimes to Iraqi pros­e­cu­tors or per­mit gov­ern­ment staff to tes­ti­fy against the for­mer dic­ta­tor because of the nation’s oppo­si­tion to the death penal­ty. Despite human rights objec­tions from British offi­cials who helped estab­lish the spe­cial tri­bunal that will try Hussein and oth­er senior mem­bers of his regime, Iraqis have insist­ed that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment remain a sen­tenc­ing option for some crimes. Coalition forces have suspended…