Publications & Testimony

An op-ed appearing in the Arizona Republic and authored by Dr. Mark Wellek, past president of the American Society for Adolescent Psychiatry, and Carol Kamin, current president of the Arizona Chapter of the Children’s Action Alliance, echoed growing national concerns about the culpability of juvenile offenders who face capital charges despite scientific evidence that they may be less culpable than adult offenders. Wellek and Kamin noted: “American society has many gray areas. Our many…

The Tennessean August 2, 2004 Editorial Executing teenagers is just as wrong as executing the mentally challenged. Dozens of foreign countries, a former president of the United States and a former president of the Soviet Union along with the American Bar Association and the American Medical Association all have said so. Now, it’s time for the U.S. Supreme Court to agree. The court will decide this fall whether to uphold a Missouri Supreme Court decision that set aside the execution of a…

Decided June 24, 2004 The Court ruled on an appeal by the State of Pennsylvania stemming from a federal court ruling that invalidated the death sentence of George Banks, who was on death row for a multiple murder committed in 1982. Banks’ sentence had been overturned on the grounds that the jury instruction during sentencing violated a 1988 Supreme Court ruling that held that jurors did not have to agree unanimously on the existence of mitigating circumstances when determining the appropriate…

The Sun News (Myrtle Beach, SC) July 31, 2004 Editorial Executing people for crimes they committed as 16- and 17-year-olds violates widely accepted human rights norms. The Supreme Court has the chance this fall to step in to affirm that teenage criminals ought not be sentenced to death because they are not old enough to be fully responsible for their judgment and their actions. The juvenile death penalty, in place in 19 states and actively used in seven, qualifies as “cruel and unusual…

In Alameda County, California, prosecutors announced that they will not seek the death penalty against Richard Dean Wilson because it is unlikely that a jury would return a death sentence. State authories say the decision to seek a life sentence for Wilson avoids a costly death penalty case and saves taxpayer dollars from financing a lengthy trial with an uncertain outcome. Wilson pleaded no contest to the murder of Angela Marie Bledsoe. Prosecutor Jim Anderson noted, “This was the best penalty…

The California Supreme Court is asking the state’s attorney general’s office to explain why Fred Freeman’s death sentence should not be reversed on allegations that a now-deceased Superior Court Judge colluded with prosecutors to ensure a capital conviction by eliminating potential Jewish jurors. The Supreme Court issued the show cause order after Freeman’s attorneys filed a claim stating that Freeman was denied a fair trial because Judge Stanley Golde allegedly told prosecutors to keep Jews…

Friday, July 30, 2004: VOL 305 30 JULY 2004 599 CREDIT: CORBIS By Mary Beckman www.sciencemag.org Crime, Culpability and the Adolescent Brain This fall, the U.S. Supreme Court will consider whether capital crimes by teenagers under 18 should get the death sentence; the case for leniency is based in part on brain studies. When he was 17 years old, Christopher Simmons persuaded a younger friend to help him rob a woman, tie her up with electrical cable and duct tape, and throw her over a…

The Philadelphia Inquirer July 30, 2004 Editorial Stop the slow march to death row This nation shields 16-year-olds from the sex, violence and profanity of R‑rated movies. Yet it executes murderers of the same age — as though they were mature enough to answer fully for their crimes. Society says these teens cannot handle movie mayhem — nor drink, vote, or sign legal contracts — but that they’re as culpable as adults for serious criminal acts. Who thinks that’s a crazy proposition? Quite a…

In Texas, Jefferson County District Attorney Tom Maness recently noted that the time-consuming and costly nature of capital punishment may lead to its demise. “I think this is the beginning of the end of the death penalty,” said Maness after a Criminal District Court Judge recommended that the Court of Criminal Appeals commute the death sentence of Walter Bell to life in prison. On three occassions, Jefferson County spent countless hours of work and hundreds of thousands of dollars to prosecute…

A new study conducted by Professor Richard Berk of the UCLA Department of Statistics has identified significant statistical problems with the data analysis used to support recent studies claiming to show that executions deter crime in the United States. In “New Claims about Executions and General Deterrence: Deja Vu All Over Again?,” Professor Berk addresses the problem of “influence,” which occurs when a very small and atypical fraction of the available data dominates the statistical results…