Publications & Testimony

Two new books on the death penal­ty offer read­ers an exam­i­na­tion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment law and America’s use of this pun­ish­ment. In ​“Understanding Capital Punishment Law,” a new book pub­lished as part of the LexisNexis Understanding series, law pro­fes­sors Linda Carter and Ellen Kreitzberg offer stu­dents in cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment cours­es an overview of this com­plex area of law. The book includes a thor­ough review of con­sti­tu­tion­al law and cur­rent issues relat­ed to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the…

Los Angles Daily…

Casper (WY) Star…

Hung Thanh Le, a Vietnamese for­eign nation­al, is sched­uled for exe­cu­tion on February 26^th in Oklahoma. Governor Brad Henry has so far reject­ed a unan­i­mous rec­om­men­da­tion from the Oklahoma Board of Pardon and Paroles to reduce Le’s death sen­tence to life in prison. Le’s appeal notes that he was not informed of his right to con­tact the Vietnamese con­sulate when he was arrest­ed and may have been suf­fer­ing from post-trau­mat­ic stress dis­or­der stem­ming from the Vietnam war. Leaders of the…

Alan Gell of North Carolina became the nation’s 113^th exon­er­at­ed death row inmate today, February 18, 2004. Gell, who has main­tained his inno­cence since his 1998 con­vic­tion, was acquit­ted of all charges by a jury that delib­er­at­ed for only two and a half hours at his retri­al. In December 2002, a North Carolina judge vacat­ed Gell’s mur­der con­vic­tion and ordered a new tri­al after rul­ing that pros­e­cu­tors with­held impor­tant evi­dence that might have helped exon­er­ate Gell at his first trial.

Rapid City…

Washington…

The authors of a new study pub­lished in the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies (J. Blume, T. Eisenberg, & M. Wells, ​“Explaining Death Row’s Population and Racial Composition,” Vol. I, Issue 1, March 2004, at 165) con­clud­ed that Texas’ rep­u­ta­tion as the lead­ing death penal­ty state in the U.S. is attrib­ut­able more to its high num­ber of exe­cu­tions and the large num­ber of mur­ders in the state, rather than to its sen­tenc­ing rate. Despite lead­ing the coun­try by far in terms of number of…

Federal pros­e­cu­tors dropped charges against Darrell Rice short­ly before he was to face cap­i­tal charges for two mur­ders in Shenandoah National Park. New foren­sic evi­dence cast doubt on the case against Rice, despite the fact that Attorney General John Ashcroft had made a pub­lic announce­ment of Rice’s indict­ment employ­ing a new law in 2002. (Washington Post, Feb. 7, 2004). A fed­er­al judge threw out a jury’s (July 2003) ver­dict of guilt in the cap­i­tal case of Jay Lentz, accused of…

Federal pros­e­cu­tors dropped charges against Darrell Rice short­ly before he was to face cap­i­tal charges for two mur­ders in Shenandoah National Park. New foren­sic evi­dence cast doubt on the case against Rice, despite the fact that Attorney General John Ashcroft had made a pub­lic announce­ment of Rice’s indict­ment employ­ing a new law in 2002. (Washington Post, Feb. 7, 2004). A fed­er­al judge threw out a jury’s (July 2003) ver­dict of guilt in the cap­i­tal case of Jay Lentz, accused of…