Publications & Testimony

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…

May 10, 2004: Austin American-StatesmanFinding jus­tice for men­tal­ly ill defen­dants There is lit­tle doubt that Texas will exe­cute Kelsey Patterson on May 18 if left to its own devices. Neither is there doubt that Patterson is guilty of mur­der­ing two East Texans. Even so, this case nev­er should have reached this point, giv­en that Patterson is severe­ly men­tal­ly ill​.In 1992, Patterson was wan­der­ing the streets with a hand gun when he hap­pened upon Louis Oates, a Palestine…

By Claudia Wallis; Kristina Dell, with report­ing by Alice Park/​New…

The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board has vot­ed to rec­om­mend clemen­cy for death row inmate Osbaldo Torres, a Mexican for­eign nation­al who is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed on May 18. The Board made its deci­sion after an hour-long hear­ing that includ­ed tes­ti­mo­ny from Carlos de Icaza, Mexican Ambassador to the United States. Icaza told the board that Mexico oppos­es cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in all cas­es, and that this case was par­tic­u­lar­ly trou­ble­some because no proof was pre­sent­ed that Torres…

“America’s Death Penalty: Beyond Repair?” exam­ines cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the U.S. since 1976 through a vari­ety of schol­ar­ly essays that look at crit­i­cal issues such as inno­cence, race, arbi­trari­ness, and inter­na­tion­al human rights law. Reknown death penal­ty expert and law pro­fes­sor Tony Amsterdam notes, ​“In these essays, some of our most knowl­edge­able stu­dents of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment take a hard, no-non­sense look at how it actu­al­ly oper­ates and what drives…

As Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney seeks to rein­state cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment with a ​“fool­proof” system(see ear­li­er What’s New item), a news inves­ti­ga­tion has revealed that 22 state men have served lengthy prison terms over the last two decades for rapes and mur­ders that they did not com­mit. Most of the wrong­ly con­vict­ed inmates were black. Experts say that Boston’s Suffolk County pros­e­cu­tors have wrong­ly con­vict­ed the sec­ond high­est num­ber of inno­cent peo­ple in the nation, falling closely…