Publications & Testimony

On the eve of the Kelsey Patterson’s sched­uled exe­cu­tion in Texas, the state’s Board of Pardons and Paroles vot­ed 5 – 1 to rec­om­mend that Governor Rick Perry com­mute Patterson’s death sen­tence to life in prison. In its rare rec­om­men­da­tion for clemen­cy, the Board not­ed that if Governor Perry refus­es to grant clemen­cy, Patterson, a men­tal­ly ill man who is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed on Tuesday, May 18^th, should receive a 120-day reprieve. The Board’s actions mark the first time in more than two…

Just days before the sched­uled exe­cu­tion of Osvaldo Torres, a Mexican for­eign nation­al on Oklahoma’s death row, Governor Brad Henry grant­ed a request for clemen­cy in part because of a recent International Court of Justice deci­sion order­ing the United States to review the cas­es of 51 Mexican for­eign nation­als on death row because they were denied their right to seek con­sular assis­tance fol­low­ing their arrest. Henry’s announce­ment came just hours after the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals…

A tele­vi­sion Mini-series based on the fic­tion nov­el ​“Reversible Errors,” a best-sell­ing book by award-win­ning author and cap­i­tal defense attor­ney Scott Turow, will air on CBS on Sunday May 23, and Tuesday May 25, 2004. The sto­ry is about a cor­po­rate lawyer whose world is turned upside-down when he is assigned to draft the final appeal of a poten­tial­ly inno­cent inmate near­ing his exe­cu­tion date. Although ​“Reversible Errors” is not about an actu­al cap­i­tal case in the U.S., the nov­el and the CBS…

During a ​“fire­side chat” with fel­low Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer and hun­dreds of lawyers and judges who prac­tice in fed­er­al courts in Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin, Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens stat­ed, ​“I think this coun­try would be much bet­ter off if we did not have cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment.” Stevens not­ed that he believes the death penal­ty is con­sti­tu­tion­al, adding, ​“But I real­ly think it’s a very unfor­tu­nate part of our judi­cial sys­tem and I would feel much, much better if…

Scientists who are skep­ti­cal of Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney’s claim that DNA is ​“infal­li­ble” evi­dence in a death penal­ty case have voiced con­cern about the assump­tion, not­ing that there is no way to avoid all pos­si­ble instances of human error and that the evi­dence does not always prove a person’s guilt or inno­cence. Theodore D. Kessis is the founder of Applied DNA Resources, based in Columbus, Ohio, and a fac­ul­ty mem­ber at the John Hopkins School of Public Health in Baltimore. He…

New York reli­gious lead­ers rep­re­sent­ing a range of faiths and regions recent­ly unit­ed to voice their oppo­si­tion to the death penal­ty and to encour­age a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions so that issues of fair­ness and accu­ra­cy may be addressed. A state­ment issued by the group not­ed: “[O]ur nation’s con­tin­ued reliance on the death penal­ty is extreme­ly cost­ly, inef­fec­tive in fight­ing crime, unequal­ly applied, and hand­ed out with alarm­ing fre­quen­cy to defen­dants who are lat­er proved to be inno­cent. Even…

During the past 10 years, most Commonwealth African coun­tries have moved toward abol­ish­ing the death penal­ty and today almost half of these coun­tries have aban­doned the prac­tice accord­ing to Amnesty International. Government lead­ers from around the con­ti­nent recent­ly met in Entebbe, Uganda, for a two-day sum­mit to dis­cuss cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Five Southern African Development Countries have abol­ished cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, and the num­ber of coun­tries end­ing the death penal­ty in the Economic…

By Lee…