Publications & Testimony

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…

Despite efforts by some state leaders to quickly “fix” the state’s death penalty statue, opposition from many legislators halted attempts to pass a bill before the summer recess at the end of July. At a legislative conference on the issue, Assemblyman Jeffrion Aubry noted that “a lot of people who spoke were against it.” These sentiments prompted Majority Leader Paul Tokasz to announce that legislators were “going to take some time with it” before deciding how to address concerns raised by the…

Baltimore Sun July 27, 2004 Editorial THE SUPREME COURT has the chance this fall to step in and 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 punishment” under the Constitution’s Eighth Amendment, according to a Missouri appellate court ruling that the U.S. Supreme Court…

Kansas City Star July 27, 2004 Editorial Christopher Simmons was 17 and should have just graduated from high school at the time a Missouri jury sentenced him to death. A decade later, his sentence is the subject of a U.S. Supreme Court case, scheduled for oral arguments in the fall. Justices would erase an outrage by abolishing the death penalty for people who commit crimes as juveniles. Besides the United States, only China, Pakistan, Iran and the Democratic Republic of the Congo permit…

The Death Penalty Information Center honored journalists and producers from the Chicago Tribune, The New York Times Magazine, Frontline, Sound Portraits Productions, and investigative journalist Alan Berlow during its 8^th Annual Thurgood Marshall Journalism Awards at the National Press Club on Monday, July 26. The awards honor those journalists who have made an exceptional contribution to the understanding of problems associated with capital punishment. Award-winning human rights attorney Bryan…

Pensacola (FL) News Journal July 26, 2004 Editorial The impulse to kill is as old as the first organized societies. Examples of executions sanctioned by ancient communities can be found in Scriptures and oral traditions from every corner of the globe. An equally long-standing tradition, stretching from the beginning of civilization to our own day, is the recognition of the moral differences and expectations of juveniles and adults. If it were not for the erosion in our understanding of…