Publications & Testimony

In a speech urg­ing U.S. lead­ers to rat­i­fy the United Nation’s Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which for­bids the exe­cu­tion of juve­nile offend­ers, President Jimmy Carter not­ed that the United States and Somalia are the only two coun­tries in the U.N. that have not approved the guide­lines. ​“My wife (Rosalyn) writes let­ters to the gov­er­nors of each state when a child is going to be exe­cut­ed,” Carted not­ed as he praise his wife’s work to end the juve­nile death penal­ty. Carter noted…

Two years after Brandon Biggs first expressed for­give­ness for Chante Mallard, the woman who killed his father in a nation­al­ly-pub­li­cized Texas mur­der, he has received a $10,000 col­lege schol­ar­ship from pris­on­ers on death row. The schol­ar­ship is fund­ed through adver­tis­ing and sub­scrip­tions to ​“Compassion,” a two-year-old newslet­ter edit­ed by and fea­tur­ing arti­cles by death row inmates across the nation. Biggs, whose father was struck by a car on a Fort Worth high­way and left to bleed to death,…

A new book by Margaret Edds, an award-win­ning edi­to­r­i­al writer with the Virginian-Pilot, explores the wrong­ful con­vic­tion of for­mer Virginia death row inmate Earl Washington. ​“An Expendable Man: The Near-Execution of Earl Washington, Jr.” pro­vides detailed analy­sis of the state’s pros­e­cu­tion of Washington, a men­tal­ly retard­ed man who spent almost 18 years in prison — near­ly 10 of those on death row — for a mur­der he did not com­mit. The book reveals the rel­a­tive ease with which individuals who…

Michael Lee McCormick has been on Tennessee’s death row for 17 years, but a recent court deci­sion throw­ing out the remain­ing evi­dence against him could result in his free­dom. Judge Doug Meyer ruled that tapes con­tain­ing con­ver­sa­tions between McCormick and an under­cov­er police offi­cer who had befriend­ed him were inad­mis­si­ble due to ​“police mis­con­duct.” Meyer not­ed that McCormick, who is an alco­holic, had con­tin­u­al­ly denied his involve­ment in the crime ​“until the author­i­ties made him dependent…

A Tennessee jury took only 2 hours to con­vict and anoth­er hour to sen­tence Richard Taylor to death. Taylor suf­fers from men­tal ill­ness and defend­ed him­self. The tri­al took place 19 years after Taylor’s orig­i­nal 1984 death sen­tence, which was set aside because he had inad­e­quate rep­re­sen­ta­tion and his com­plex men­tal-health his­to­ry had not been ful­ly inves­ti­gat­ed. In the years since that rul­ing, Taylor has been deemed incom­pe­tent to stand tri­al, but a judge recent­ly ruled that Taylor could be…

Stephen ​“The Rifleman” Flemmi was allowed to plead guilty to 10 mur­ders, drug traf­fick­ing, rack­e­teer­ing and extor­tion, as fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors agreed not to seek the death penal­ty against him in exchange for his coop­er­a­tion with ongo­ing crime inves­ti­ga­tions. Under the terms of the agree­ment, Flemmi — who has also admit­ted to mur­ders in Florida and Oklahoma — will serve a life with­out parole sen­tence in a secure unit reserved for coop­er­at­ing inmates. Among the mur­ders com­mit­ted by Flemmi were…

Kenyan gov­ern­ment offi­cials are work­ing to abol­ish the nation’s death penal­ty and replace the pun­ish­ment with life in prison. The rec­om­men­da­tion is cur­rent­ly under review by Kenya’s con­sti­tu­tion­al review con­fer­ence, a body com­prised of mem­bers of par­lia­ment, pro­fes­sion­al bod­ies and reli­gious and civic lead­ers. Kenya has not had an exe­cu­tion since 1987, but 2,618 peo­ple remain on the nation’s death row. Kenya’s assis­tant min­is­ter for home affairs, Wilfred Machage, not­ed, ​“The prac­tice has been…

“Life on Death Row” is a first-per­son account of liv­ing under a death sen­tence in Arizona. Written by Arizona death row inmate Robert W. Murray, the book explores how inmates cope with exe­cu­tion war­rants, lethal injec­tion, prison pol­i­tics, and day-to-day life in a super­max prison facil­i­ty. Find more infor­ma­tion about this book. (www​.1st​books​.com) ( Albert Publishing Co. in asso­ci­a­tion with 1^st Books Library, 2003) See…

On October 3, 2003, the Alabama Supreme Court unan­i­mous­ly reversed Phillip Tomlin’s death sen­tence and ordered him resen­tenced to life in prison with­out parole, mark­ing the Court’s first rul­ing to cre­ate a stan­dard of review for judi­cial over­ride in the state. Tomlin had been on death row for more than 25 years despite the fact that four juries have rec­om­mend­ed that he receive a life sen­tence for his alleged role in a Mobile, Alabama, revenge killing. In each of those cas­es, the trial judge…

In ​“Kiss of Death: America’s Love Affair with the Death Penalty,” attor­ney John Bessler presents argu­ments against cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment based on his work as a pro bono attor­ney for death row inmates in Texas. Woven into Bessler’s per­son­al account is an exam­i­na­tion of U.S. cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment prac­tices in con­trast to the absence of the death penal­ty in oth­er nations. The book also address­es the toll exe­cu­tions take on those who par­tic­i­pate in the process. (Northeastern University Press, 2003) See…