Publications & Testimony

Evidence from a cap­i­tal mur­der case and sev­en oth­er cas­es test­ed for DNA by the Houston Police Department’s crime lab have been destroyed. The District Attorney’s office said that it may have to ask for par­dons in these cas­es if the defen­dants were con­vict­ed large­ly on the weight of DNA evi­dence. ​“We’re going to have to alert the judges and the defense attor­neys and eval­u­ate each case to see what we have got to sup­port the con­vic­tion with­out the DNA. If DNA played a large role, I may be…

A review of death penal­ty defense poli­cies in Texas has uncov­ered wide­spread non­com­pli­ance with state laws that require each region to adopt qual­i­fi­ca­tion stan­dards for cap­i­tal defense attor­neys. Only two of the nine judi­cial regions in Texas have adopt­ed the stan­dards. A report on the find­ings has been pub­lished by the Equal Justice Center, a Texas orga­ni­za­tion that advo­cates for greater fair­ness in the jus­tice sys­tem, and the Texas Defender Service, an orga­ni­za­tion ded­i­cat­ed to improving…

By a vote of 357 – 67, the U.S. House of Representatives passed leg­is­la­tion des­ig­nat­ing $25 mil­lion in fund­ing over five years for DNA test­ing that could help prove the inno­cence of some death row inmates. The bill also pro­vides fund­ing for states to improve the qual­i­ty of legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion for those fac­ing cap­i­tal charges. The bipar­ti­san-sup­port­ed bill, enti­tled The Advancing Justice Through DNA Technology Act of 2003 (H.R. 3214), includes a com­pre­hen­sive pack­age of pro­grams that provides…

A Charlotte (North Carolina) News & Observer inves­tiga­tive series about the death penal­ty found that pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct led to a num­ber of North Carolina cap­i­tal con­vic­tions being over­turned, and that more cas­es are cur­rent­ly under review due to ques­tions of improp­er behav­ior by the state. The series not­ed that pros­e­cu­tors who have with­held evi­dence often receive no sig­nif­i­cant pun­ish­ment. Among the cas­es high­light­ed in the report were the…

In a plea agree­ment reached with Washington state pros­e­cu­tors, Gary Ridgway, a Seattle-area man who admit­ted to 48 mur­ders since 1982, will serve a sen­tence of life in prison with­out parole. Prosecutors spared Ridgway from exe­cu­tion in exchange for his coop­er­a­tion in lead­ing police to the remains of still-miss­ing vic­tims. (Associated Press, November 5, 2003) The state’s plea agree­ment rais­es ques­tions of pro­por­tion­al­i­ty in sen­tenc­ing when com­pared with the oth­er inmates on the state’s death…

Race plays a sig­nif­i­cant role in who receives the death penal­ty in Washington. Research com­piled by the Washington Death Penalty Assistance Center, revealed that death notices have nev­er been filed in a case with a white defen­dant and a black vic­tim, while such notices have been filed in 42% of mur­der cas­es with a black defen­dant and a white vic­tim. Of the 10 indi­vid­u­als cur­rent­ly on death row in Washington, nine cas­es involved a white vic­tim and none involved a black vic­tim. In addition,…

During a speech host­ed by the Southern Center for International Studies in Atlanta, Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor stressed the impor­tance of inter­na­tion­al law for American courts and the need for the United States to cre­ate a more favor­able impres­sion abroad. She cit­ed recent Supreme Court cas­es, includ­ing the Court’s rul­ing to ban the exe­cu­tion of those with men­tal retar­da­tion, that illus­trate the increased will­ing­ness of U.S. courts to take inter­na­tion­al law into account. ​“I…

A new book of pho­tog­ra­phy by Taryn Simon fea­tures por­traits of 45 men and women who served more than 500 years in prison for crimes they did not com­mit. The book includes sum­maries of each case accom­pa­nied by relat­ed images, such as re-cre­ations of the scenes of the arrest, por­traits of ali­bi wit­ness­es, or vignettes from the lives of the wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed. The book also con­tains com­men­tary by Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld of The Innocence Project at Cardozo Law School in New York.

In a recent col­umn exam­in­ing Massachusetts’ con­sid­er­a­tion of the death penal­ty, con­ser­v­a­tive colum­nist George Will cites the con­clu­sions of death penal­ty experts who have close­ly exam­ined the accu­ra­cy and effec­tive­ness of this pun­ish­ment. Will cit­ed the work of the Illinois Commission on Capital Punishment and espe­cial­ly the expe­ri­ence of author Scott Turow. Will believes that Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney’s effort to find a fault­less death penal­ty will ultimately…

A report in the Chicago Tribune reveals that police and pros­e­cu­tors rarely pur­sue new leads and sus­pects after a wrong­ly con­vict­ed defen­dant has been exon­er­at­ed of the crime and released from death row. As a result, few sus­pects are brought to jus­tice for crimes once con­sid­ered so heinous that they were wor­thy of the death penal­ty, and the actu­al per­pe­tra­tors remain in soci­ety to poten­tial­ly com­mit addi­tion­al crimes. The Tribune report not­ed that court records indi­cate that an alternate…