Publications & Testimony

In ​“Capital Punishment in Colorado: 1859 – 1972,” University of Colorado pro­fes­sor and death penal­ty expert Michael Radelet reviews the his­to­ry of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in Colorado. In the arti­cle, Radelet reviews each of the state’s exe­cu­tions dur­ing that time peri­od and uses the data to show gen­er­al pat­terns regard­ing the aver­age time between con­vic­tion and exe­cu­tion, types of crimes and num­ber of vic­tims, and the logis­tics of car­ry­ing out the exe­cu­tions. 74 University of Colorado Law Review 885…

Pennsylvania death row inmate Nicholas James Yarris may become the next per­son to be freed from death row. In light of new DNA evi­dence that excludes Yarris as the per­son respon­si­ble for the 1981 rape and mur­der for which he was con­vict­ed, U.S. District Court Judge James Giles said that Yarris must be freed or grant­ed a new tri­al in Delaware County with­in two weeks. Giles gave the Delaware County dis­trict attor­ney’s office and defense attor­neys 10 days to con­firm that the new DNA tests are…

The most recent newslet­ter pro­duced by the End to Capital Punishment Movement USA (ECPM USA) high­lights devel­op­ments in the orga­ni­za­tion’s aim to strength­en the cross-Atlantic dia­logue on the death penal­ty. Among oth­er items, the newslet­ter con­tains arti­cles on state reports on the death penal­ty, the Council of Europe sem­i­nars on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment that were recent­ly held in Illinois and Washington, DC, and infor­ma­tion about the Second World Conference on the Death Penalty that is scheduled…

The fol­low­ing excerpts are from Judge Mark Wolf’s opin­ion allow­ing the fed­er­al cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tion of Gary Lee Sampson to pro­ceed. In his deci­sion, Judge Wolf of the Federal District Court in Boston expressed reser­va­tions about the risks of exe­cut­ing the inno­cent and appeared to crit­i­cize the Justice Department’s zeal­ous approach to seek­ing cap­i­tal con­vic­tions. The head­ings for these excerpts, which are not part of the orig­i­nal text, are fol­lowed by page num­bers that cor­re­late with the…

A new report by Michael Mears of the Office of the Multi-County Public Defender pro­vides a detailed exam­i­na­tion of every death penal­ty tri­al in Georgia since the state passed its cur­rent death penal­ty statute in 1973. This resource con­tains a list­ing of death penal­ty cas­es by name of the defen­dant, name of the coun­ty, name of the judi­cial cir­cuit, as well as the dis­po­si­tion of every death penal­ty case. It also pro­vides a brief overview of the his­toric role Georgia has played in the Supreme…

In a recent Greensboro News & Record op-ed, Marshall Hurley, a long-time Republican in North Carolina, ques­tioned giv­ing the state author­i­ty to car­ry out exe­cu­tions when the cur­rent prac­tice of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment fails to meet con­ser­v­a­tive stan­dards and risks inno­cent lives. He…

The New York Times Magazine recent­ly explored the life of Stanley Williams, an orig­i­nal founder of the ​“Crips” gang and a con­vict­ed mur­der­er who has been on death row in San Quentin prison for more than two…

American Correctional AssociationAnnual Conference — Nashville,…

A recent paper based on the Notre Dame Study of Catholic Parish Life reveals that sup­port for the death penal­ty among Catholics is strong­ly shaped by the opin­ion of their parish priest. After exam­in­ing Catholic opin­ions regard­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, soci­ol­o­gists Michael Welch of Notre Dame and Thoroddur Bjarnason of the University of Albany-SUNY dis­cov­ered that Catholics are less like­ly to sup­port the death penal­ty when their parish priest strong­ly oppos­es it. The study also found that…

In a deci­sion reluc­tant­ly allow­ing a fed­er­al cap­i­tal mur­der case against Gary Lee Sampson to pro­ceed, Judge Mark L. Wolf of the Federal District Court in Boston expressed reser­va­tions about the accu­ra­cy of the death penal­ty and appeared to crit­i­cize the Justice Department’s zeal­ous approach to seek­ing the cap­i­tal con­vic­tions. He…