Publications & Testimony

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…

The U.S. Supreme Court unan­i­mous­ly ruled that an Alabama death row inmate could pur­sue his claim that the lethal injec­tion pro­ce­dures in his case con­sti­tute cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment. David Nelson, who was less than three hours away from his sched­uled exe­cu­tion last fall when the Supreme Court gave him a tem­po­rary reprieve, had filed a claim under sec­tion 1983 of the Civil Rights Law stat­ing that his dam­aged veins would make it impos­si­ble to insert an intra­venous line without…

Laurence Adams, who was sen­tenced to death in Massachusetts in 1974 short­ly before the state final­ly aban­doned cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, was released on May 20 after spend­ing three decades of his life in prison. In April 2004, a judge over­turned Adams’ con­vic­tion when new evi­dence, includ­ing con­flict­ing state­ments from the state’s star wit­ness and a state­ment from a wit­ness who said two oth­er peo­ple com­mit­ted the mur­der, cast doubt on his guilt. Superior Court Judge Robert A.

An April 2004 poll of North Carolinians revealed that 63% of respon­dents sup­port a halt to exe­cu­tions while the state’s death penal­ty is stud­ied, and many respon­dents have doubts about the accu­ra­cy of the death penal­ty. ​“Support for the two-year sus­pen­sion of exe­cu­tions is wide­spread and cuts across all demo­graph­ic groups, regions of the state and polit­i­cal par­ty affil­i­a­tion. This is clear­ly an issue that res­onates with the peo­ple of North Carolina,” stat­ed John Doble, founder of Doble…

Both city vot­ers and the Bar Association of San Francisco have voiced sup­port for San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris’ deci­sion to not seek the death penal­ty in the case against David Hill, who is accused of killing city police offi­cer Isaac Espinoza. A recent poll found that 70% of respon­dents backed Harris’ deci­sion, while only 22% opposed the choice and 8% remained unde­cid­ed. The poll also found that 65% of those sur­veyed gave Harris’ over­all per­for­mance as District Attorney…