Publications & Testimony

A Kentucky prosecutor raised religious objections to the death penalty in asking to step aside in the case of two men charged with murder. J. Stewart Schneider, the commonwealth’s attorney in Boyd County in northeastern Kentucky, said Thursday he filed his motion to withdraw from the case after reflections at a religious retreat. Schneider also is a minister with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). “I spent that weekend in prayer,” he said. “The more I thought about it, the more…

Three new items have been added to DPIC’s Web site, including a summary of a new report from The Sentencing Project, the complete results of a recent North Carolina poll, and an updated “Special Resources from DPIC” Web page: 1. A summary of important facts from The Sentencing Project’s new report: “The Meaning of ‘Life’: Long Prison Sentences in Context.” For example, the report notes that the use of life-without-parole sentences has expanded significantly — of the lifers in prison, one in four…

In a unanimous vote that will soon add their nation to a lengthy list of countries around the world that have either halted executions or abandoned capital punishment altogether, the lower house of Tajikistan’s Parliament has adopted a moratorium on the death penalty. Passage by the upper house and the signature of the President are reportedly assured. The Tajik moratorium will leave Uzbekistan as the only republic in Central Asia that continues to carry out executions. Experts on Central Asia…

Professor emeritus James J. Megivern of the University of North Carolina at Wilmington examines the shift in Roman Catholic Church teaching regarding capital punishment in “Judge Noonan, Church Change, and the Death Penalty,” published by the University of St. Thomas Law Journal. In the article, Megivern outlines Judge John T. Noonan’s remarks on this issue and provides additional insight about the historical milestones that have occurred as the Church began to issue public calls for an end to…

A May 2004 poll by the political consulting firm of Ayres McHenry and Associates found that 66% of respondents support capital punishment for murder, a figure that reflects the lower support for the death penalty found in several polls taken in 2003. (Ayres McHenry and Associates, May 2004) In 2003, polling results published by Gallup Poll, ABC News, and the Pew Research Center all measured support for capital punishment at 64%, significantly below the public’s support for capital punishment in…

As the U.S. Supreme Court prepares to hear arguments in Roper v. Simmons regarding the death penalty for juvenile offenders, researchers have found critical evidence that the brain continues to change dramatically during adolescence. This research may help explain the impulsive, often irrational behavior seen in some teenagers. “Kids may know the difference between right and wrong, but that does not stop them from doing dumb and dangerous things that they would never think of doing as adults,”…

The Arizona Supreme Court has ordered that former Pima County prosecutor Kenneth Peasley be disbarred for knowingly eliciting false testimony in a capital murder case. After studying the results of a review conducted by its Disciplinary Commission, the Supreme Court noted that the use of false testimony in the trial of two men accused in a 1992 triple-murder case “could not have been more harmful to the justice system.” In their unanimous decision, the Justices stated, “A prosecutor who…

A May 2004 Gallup Poll found that a growing number of Americans support a sentence of life without parole rather than the death penalty for those convicted of murder. Gallup found that 46% of respondents favor life imprisonment over the death penalty, up from 44% in May 2003. During that same time frame, support for capital punishment as an alternative fell from 53% to 50%. The poll also revealed a growing skepticism that the death penalty deters crime, with 62% of those polled saying that it…