Publications & Testimony

In ​“Forced Medication of Legally Incompetent Prisoners: A Primer,” Kathy Swedlow uses cas­es such as Singleton v. Norris to exam­ine the legal back­ground and heat­ed debate sur­round­ing the issue of invol­un­tary treat­ment of death row pris­on­ers to make them sane enough for exe­cu­tion. Swedlow notes that many of those who sup­port cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment find the hold­ing in Singleton (which allows forcible med­ica­tion) unset­tling. She con­cludes that ​“even assum­ing Singelton’s guilt, the forcible medication…

Dave Lindorff’s arti­cle ​“Unjust Executions” goes beyond the issue of inno­cence and explores cas­es where guilty defen­dants may have been exe­cut­ed despite uncon­sti­tu­tion­al tri­als. The arti­cle, avail­able on Salon​.com (May 6, 2003), fea­tures exam­ples of courts bar­ring new evi­dence and com­ments from death penal­ty experts such as Robert Blecker of New York Law School, a staunch death penal­ty advo­cate, who nev­er­the­less admits that: ​“There are def­i­nite­ly plen­ty of sen­tenc­ing errors where those who…

The Texas Senate passed leg­is­la­tion (S.B. 1045) to cre­ate a joint inter­im com­mit­tee on post-con­vic­tion exon­er­a­tions. The com­mit­tee will study wrong­ful con­vic­tions in the state and iden­ti­fy appro­pri­ate improve­ments in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem to pre­vent such errors in the future. The nine mem­bers of the com­mit­tee will include a state’s attoney, two mem­bers cho­sen from the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, two mem­bers of the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee, a judge, and two law…

Kentucky Governor Paul Patton said that he will com­mute the death sen­tence of Kevin Stanford, a juve­nile offend­er whose 1989 case before the U.S. Supreme Court result­ed in a rul­ing allow­ing the exe­cu­tion of those who were 16 or 17-years-old at the time of their crime. This will be the first time Patton has com­mut­ed a death sen­tence since he took office, and he not­ed in his announce­ment that the jus­tice sys­tem ​“per­pet­u­at­ed an injus­tice” in Stanford’s case. Stanford has been on Kentucky’s death…

Juries in 15 of the last 16 fed­er­al cap­i­tal tri­als have declined to impose the death penal­ty, despite a more aggres­sive pur­suit of this pun­ish­ment by the Justice Department. Since President George Bush took office, 15% of the cap­i­tal tri­als have result­ed in death sen­tences, com­pared to 46% of cas­es in which the death penal­ty was sought from 1988 to 2000. Legal experts believe that over­reach­ing by pros­e­cu­tors and some jurors’ grow­ing unease with the death penal­ty may account for the trend.

A recent edi­to­r­i­al in The Beacon Journal notes that Ohio Supreme Court Justice Paul Pfeifer, who played a lead­ing role in writ­ing Ohio’s death penal­ty statute 22 years ago when he was chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is now call­ing for pas­sage of leg­is­la­tion to ana­lyze the state’s death penal­ty sys­tem. The review, which also has the endorse­ment of the Ohio State Bar Association, would cre­ate a Capital Case Commission to study the state’s death penal­ty and make reform recommendations…

“Burden of Proof” is a 32-minute doc­u­men­tary detail­ing the need for a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions in North Carolina. The video was pre­pared by New Context Video Productions and offers evi­dence to sug­gest that North Carolina’s cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem is bad­ly bro­ken and in need of a leg­isla­tive review. (June 2003) Watch the…

In a vote that will dra­mat­i­cal­ly change the way mur­der inves­ti­ga­tions are con­duct­ed, the Illinois House has over­whelm­ing­ly approved leg­is­la­tion requir­ing audio-or video­tap­ing of most homi­cide-relat­ed inter­ro­ga­tions and con­fes­sions. The bill, which unan­i­mous­ly passed the Senate last month, now goes to Governor Rod Blagojevich for sig­na­ture into law. The Governor has vowed to sign the leg­is­la­tion. Attorney Thomas Sullivan, who co-chaired the Illinois Commission on Capital Punishment that made…

NEW VOICES: Former FBI Chief Sessions Calls for Innocence Commission in Texas In a recent op-ed, William Sessions called on state leg­is­la­tors in Texas to pass a mea­sure to cre­ate an Innocence Commission. The Commission would exam­ine the Texas crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem in an effort to pro­tect against wrong­ful con­vic­tions. Sessions, a for­mer direc­tor of the FBI and fed­er­al judge, not­ed that numer­ous exon­er­a­tions , recent crime lab scan­dals (see below) in the state, and oth­er troubling events…

As inves­ti­ga­tors con­tin­ue to scru­ti­nize the Houston Crime Lab’s his­to­ry of shod­dy prac­tices and inac­cu­rate test results, includ­ing evi­dence in cap­i­tal cas­es, an op-ed in the Houston Chronicle called for District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal and Houston Police Chief Clarence Bradford to recuse them­selves from the inves­ti­ga­tion to ensure a fair…