Publications & Testimony

By a vote of 29 – 19, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights passed a res­o­lu­tion call­ing on all nations to declare a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions. The res­o­lu­tion cit­ed con­cerns about the fair­ness and accu­ra­cy of the death penal­ty. In order to address these prob­lems, the res­o­lu­tion calls on nations that no longer use the death penal­ty to remove it from their laws, and for coun­tries that con­tin­ue to car­ry out exe­cu­tions to lim­it the num­ber of crimes that may be pun­ished by death. The…

Lakeland…

Concorde (NH)…

Researchers at the University of Michigan iden­ti­fied 328 crim­i­nal cas­es, includ­ing 73 death penal­ty cas­es, over the last 15 years in which the defen­dant was ulti­mate­ly exon­er­at­ed. The study sug­gest­ed that many more inno­cent peo­ple are in prison today. Most of the cas­es stud­ied involved mur­der and rape, crimes that are sub­ject­ed to the most intense police inves­ti­ga­tion but that can also pro­vide defen­dants with the oppor­tu­ni­ty to prove their inno­cence based on DNA evi­dence. Of the 328 cases of…

Palm Beach…

Tampa (FL)…

Tampa…

On Monday, April 19, the United States Supreme Court will hear argu­ments in the case of Schriro v. Summerlin that will deter­mine whether a pri­or deci­sion applies only to some death row inmates in the first stage of their appeals or to all inmates in the affect­ed states. In 2002, the Court held in Ring v. Arizona that juries, not judges, must decide who is eli­gi­ble for the death penal­ty. The new rul­ing could affect over 100 death row inmates in at least 5 states. At the conclusion of…

District Attorney Paul Connick has agreed that Ryan Matthews, a juve­nile offend­er on Louisiana’s death row, deserves a new tri­al. Matthews has main­tained his inno­cence since his arrest. Attorneys for Matthews will use the retri­al as an oppor­tu­ni­ty to present new DNA evi­dence that they believe exon­er­ates their client. Testing of sev­en DNA pro­files gath­ered as part of key evi­dence in the case excludes Matthews as the offend­er, and sev­er­al point to the guilt of anoth­er man, Rondell Love.

San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris has announced that she will seek a life with­out parole con­vic­tion for David Hill, who is accused of mur­der­ing a city police offi­cer. Harris, who ran for office promis­ing not to seek the death penal­ty, said that in cas­es such as this it is ​“nat­ur­al to feel that we should have an eye for an eye” but argued ​“life with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole is a severe con­se­quence.” Harris stat­ed that death penal­ty cas­es in California typ­i­cal­ly drag on for…