Publications & Testimony

Members of New Jersey’s leg­is­la­ture have passed by a wide mar­gin a bipar­ti­san bill call­ing for the cre­ation of a study com­mis­sion to exam­ine the cost, fair­ness and effects of cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tions in that state. The bill had the sup­port of key state leg­is­la­tors, includ­ing Republican Senator Robert Martin. Martin said that he believed it might be time for New Jersey to con­sid­er a com­plete ban on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, not­ing that the state’s review process​“is so…

A report in the Polk County (Florida) Lakeland Ledger exam­ined the finan­cial impact of cost­ly cap­i­tal tri­als on states that are strug­gling to make ends meet. The report not­ed that death penal­ty cas­es neg­a­tive­ly impact coun­ty gov­ern­ments because the hun­dreds of thou­sands of dol­lars that is spent annu­al­ly on cap­i­tal cas­es takes away fund­ing from cru­cial indi­gent care pro­grams and oth­er impor­tant ser­vices. As an exam­ple, the paper notes,​“Take the case of Tavares…

Kansas Death Penalty Cost ReportSummary by Death Penalty Information CenterThe State of Kansas recent­ly issued a report esti­mat­ing the costs of the death penal­ty in that state:​“Performance Audit Report: Costs Incurred for Death Penalty Cases: A K‑GOAL Audit of the Department of Corrections,” (December 2003).

Anthony Maurice Bone will become the sixth North Carolina death row inmate to have his sen­tence com­mut­ed to life in prison due to a 2001 state law ban­ning the exe­cu­tion of indi­vid­u­als with men­tal retar­da­tion. The state defines as men­tal­ly retard­ed any­one with an IQ of 70 or below who also has sig­nif­i­cant impair­ment in at least two of ten life activ­i­ties, such as com­mu­ni­cat­ing and tak­ing care of them­selves. The law requires that defen­dants show signs of…

During a recent appear­ance on CNN’s​“Larry King Live,” come­di­an Bill Cosby addressed cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment and his expe­ri­ence as the father of a murdered…

Four stays were grant­ed for exe­cu­tions that were sched­uled to take place this week in Texas and Georgia, and Oklahoma’s Pardon and Parole Board unan­i­mous­ly rec­om­mend­ed clemen­cy for a for­eign nation­al fac­ing exe­cu­tion in January 2004. In Texas, courts ordered three stays of exe­cu­tion. Two of the cas­es involved chal­lenges to the use of pan­curo­ni­um bro­mide as part of the state’s lethal injec­tion process. A third case, that of Bobby Lee Hines, was stayed on the basis of…

A series of pub­lic opin­ion polls reveals that only about a third of Americans sup­port the death penal­ty as applied to those who are under the age of 18 at the time of their crime. Recent sur­vey results include…

Twenty-six years ago, Bill Wiseman draft­ed the first lethal-injec­­tion law in U.S. his­to­ry, for­ev­er chang­ing the way most death penal­ty states admin­is­ter exe­cu­tions. He now says that guilt com­pelled him to draft the leg­is­la­tion after vot­ing to rein­state the death penal­ty in Oklahoma despite the fact that he had always been an oppo­nent of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. At the time, Wiseman was a first-term law­mak­er in Oklahoma’s assem­bly, and he knew oppos­ing the state’s 1976…

Minnesota Senator Tom Neuville, the lead­ing Republican com­mit­tee mem­ber on the state’s Senate Judiciary Committee, says he will oppose Governor Tim Pawlenty’s efforts to rein­state death penal­ty. Neuville’s basic oppo­si­tion is moral:​“If we solve vio­lence by becom­ing vio­lent our­selves, we become dimin­ished.” Neuville, a for­mer death penal­ty sup­port­er whose reex­am­i­na­tion of his pro-life beliefs led him to change his mind on the issue, feels that many of his colleagues…

On December 9, 2003, Nicholas James Yarris of Pennsylvania became the 10^th per­son to be exon­er­at­ed from death row in 2003, equalling the most exon­er­a­tions in a sin­gle year since the death penal­ty was rein­stat­ed. He is the nation’s 112^th death row exoneree. Yarris’s con­vic­tion was ini­tial­ly over­turned when three DNA tests of the foren­sic tri­al evi­dence exclud­ed him. His exon­er­a­tion became final when Delaware County pros­e­cu­tors announced that they were dropping all…