Publications & Testimony

Eight former North Carolina Supreme Court justices are urging the leadership of the North Carolina House of Representatives to allow a vote on legislation that would impose a two-year moratorium on executions in the state while capital punishment is studied. Among the 8 former justices are Democrats and Republicans, some who support the death penalty and others who oppose it. “This legislation is about fundamental fairness, an issue that should not be controversial. The recent exonerations of…

The Texas Democratic Party has adopted an historic party platform that contains a number of death penalty reform recommendations, including a call for legislators to enact a moratorium on executions, to ban the execution of juvenile offenders and the mentally ill, and to consider adopting a life without paroles sentence in Texas. More than 1,700 attendees at the Democratic Party’s state convention signed a resolution calling for the moratorium, surpassing the 30% signature threshold required to…

Although Virginia jurors in the trial of Lee Boyd Malvo maintained their camaraderie during the six weeks of trial and deliberations on whether he was guilty of capital murder in one of a series of sniper shootings, the group became sharply divided when weighing the question of whether to sentence the teen to death. The jury foreman and a second member of the jury revealed that a core group of four jurors did not believe Malvo’s role in the murders warranted the death penalty. They stated that…

New York’s highest court has ruled that a provision of the state’s capital punishment statute violates the state constitution, a decision that appears to invalidate the sentences of all four men on New York’s death row. In New York, if a jury deadlocks, the judge imposes a sentence of 20 – 25 years to life, giving the possibility of parole. In its 4 – 3 ruling, the Court of Appeals said that these sentencing rules might unconstitutionally coerce jurors into voting for a death sentence rather than…

In an exclusive two-part series titled “Snitch Work,” Philadelphia’s City Paper explores the possible innocence of Pennsylvania death row inmate Walter Ogrod. Investigative writer Tom Lowenstein describes Ogrod’s first trial, which resulted in a mistrial when 11 of the 12 jurors voted for acquittal. In Ogrod’s second trial in 1996, the state employed a notorious jailhouse snitch, John Hall, to strengthen their case against Ogrod, who continued to maintain his innocence. Lowenstein’s “Snitch…

In an editorial written following the execution of Steven Oken in Maryland on June 17^th, The Washington Post criticized the state’s flawed death penalty system and questioned what purpose capital punishment serves. The editorial stated: Steven Howard Oken went to his death this week in Maryland — the 1^st execution in the state in 6 years, the 1^st as well since Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) lifted his processor’s moratorium on executions. Mr. Oken was as good a candidate for capital…

Former Republican Senator John Danforth of Missouri, President Bush’s nominee to serve as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, is a long-time opponent of capital punishment. During his tenure in the Senate, Danforth made his position on the death penalty clear in a 1994 Senate floor statement: “I think we should do away with the death penalty. As a matter of personal conscience, I have always opposed the death penalty…. We have had up or down votes on capital punishment. I always vote against…

A recent Dallas Morning News editorial decried the use of expert witnesses who claim to have the ability to predict future dangerousness, a determination that jurors in Texas heavily rely on in sentencing people to death. The editorial states: In Texas, we execute criminals not for what they did, but for what they might do. Convicted murderer David Harris has a date with the executioner June 30 for having killed a man in a Beaumont gunfight. But that’s not enough to get Mr. Harris, or any…

Applications for Soros Justice Advocacy, Senior and Media Fellowships are now being accepted by the Open Society Institute from lawyers, advocates, organizers, scholars, journalists and documentarians seeking to make advancements in criminal justice. The deadline for applicants is September 22, 2004. Proposed work should focus on reducing the nation’s over reliance on policies of punishment and incarceration, encouraging the successful resettlement of people returning from prison, eliminating…