Publications & Testimony

Poll Finds Tepid Support for Death Penalty as State Sets Execution Date As Maryland Circuit Court Judge Steven I. Platt signed a death warrant scheduling the execution of Heath W. Burch for the week of December 6, a Potomac Inc. poll of state residents revealed that only 53% support capital punishment. Burch has been on death row since 1996 and would be the first person since 1953 to be executed for a crime committed in Prince George’s County. Experts predict that his execution would be met…

North Carolina Preparing to Execute Mentally Ill Man Sammy Perkins is scheduled for execution in North Carolina on October 8, despite his mental illness and the fact that the jurors at his trial did not learn the extent of his disability. According to a press release from Perkins’s attorneys: “The jury never heard the full story of Sammy Perkins’ mental disorder: A family history of psychiatric problems left its mark on Sammy Perkins. Several family members suffered from mental illnesses. In…

ACLU Report on International Implications of Capital Punishment in the U.S. A new report by the ACLU’s Capital Punishment Project discusses the United States’ position on the death penalty in the face of international concerns regarding this practice. The report, How the Death Penalty Weakens U.S. International Interests, notes that many other nations are moving toward abolition of capital punishment and are critical of specific aspects of the death penalty in the U.S. Among the topics…

Groups Issue Report on Women Facing Execution (Note: Dec. 1 execution of Frances Newton was stayed by the governor.) As Texas plans to carry out the scheduled execution of Frances Newton on December 1, a new report documenting the results of a national survey of women currently on death row found that many women have been subjected to harsh living conditions and that most were sentenced for the murder of someone they knew. The report, The Forgotten Population: A Look at Death Row in the United…

Military Death Sentence Vacated An Army Court of Criminal Appeals has vacated the death sentence of William Kreutzer, a Fort Bragg soldier who was sent to the military’s death row for killing a fellow soldier and wounding others in 1995. The Court cited a number of grounds for the ruling that opens the door for rehearings on some charges and the sentence. For example, Kreutzer’s attorneys failed to adequately explain the significance of their client’s mental health problems for the panel that…

Juveniles and the Mentally Disabled More Likely to Give False Confessions Studies and surveys have found that both minors and the mentally impaired are more likely to make false confessions, in part because they are more vulnerable to suggestion. A recent study conducted by Northwestern University law professor Steve Drizin and UC Irvine criminologist Richard Leo examined 125 cases in which individuals were exonerated after giving false confessions. The researchers found that 32% of the cases…

Article Examines Statistical Models of Measuring Deterrence In the July 2004 Skeptical Enquirer, Rutgers Sociology professor Ted Goertzel examines the methods — and the variant results that emerge — used in studying the deterrent effect of executions on homicide. Read the article here. Scientific American Looks at Crime Rates In his Scientific American magazine article entitled, “The Case of the Unsolved Crime Decline,” criminologist Richard Rosenfeld examines why U.S. crime rates dropped more…

Kansas Death Penalty Advisory Committee Releases Report A recent report issued by the Kansas Judicial Council Death Penalty Advisory Committee examines the state’s application of capital punishment and the hefty price tag of seeking the death penalty. The Committee found that since Kansas reinstated the death penalty in 1994 there were 44 potential capital cases involving minority victims. However, none of these cases resulted in a death sentence. Of the eight defendants in Kansas who did…

Broken System: Error Found in Three-Quarters of New Jersey Death Cases Of the 63 death sentences handed down since New Jersey reinstated capital punishment in 1982, 47 have been overturned, including that of Robert Marshall, whose death sentence was reversed on April 8^th by a federal court. Marshall had been on New Jersey’s death row longer than any other inmate prior to the vacating of his sentence. New Jersey has not carried out an execution since bringing back the death penalty. It currently…

A new report by the ACLU’s Capital Punishment Project discusses the United States’ position on the death penalty in the face of international concerns regarding this practice. The report, How the Death Penalty Weakens U.S. International Interests, notes that many other nations are moving toward abolition of capital punishment and are critical of specific aspects of the death penalty in the U.S. Among the topics featured in this resource are the ongoing international efforts to abolish the death…