Publications & Testimony

Despite the fact that the Constitution defin­ing Puerto Rico’s sta­tus as a self-gov­­ern­ing com­mon­wealth asso­ci­at­ed with the United States uncon­di­tion­al­ly bans cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, the U.S. is seek­ing the fed­er­al death penal­ty in the tri­al of two Puerto Rican men. The tri­al has spurred grass-root protests against the death penal­ty. Gov. Sila M. Calderon, the Commonwealth’s top elect­ed offi­cial, said the case demon­strates the need to fur­ther reform the U.S. — Puerto…

States have been spend­ing tens to hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars extra per year in order to pur­sue the death penal­ty, while crime fight­ing strate­gies that have been proven effec­tive are start­ing to suf­fer as states face severe bud­get deficits. The New York Times recent­ly col­lect­ed some of the cut­backs to essential…

Despite con­cerns that errors made by poor­ly paid pri­vate attor­neys who are unfa­mil­iar with death penal­ty lit­i­ga­tion could risk inno­cent lives in Florida, Governor Jeb Bush will soon close one of the state’s three Capital Collateral Regional Counsel (CCRC) offices. The offices are designed to defend death row inmates in their post-con­vic­­tion appeals. Bush is clos­ing the Tallahassee office, where attor­neys have suc­cess­ful­ly freed wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed death row inmates.

Illinois law­mak­ers recent­ly approved sweep­ing death penal­ty reforms and have sent the leg­isla­tive pack­age to Governor Rod Blagojevich for sig­na­ture into law. The reforms are expect­ed to trans­form the inves­ti­ga­tion and pros­e­cu­tion of every death-eli­gi­ble crime in Illinois. Based on rec­om­men­da­tions made by the Illinois Commission on Capital Punishment, the bill would change police pro­ce­dures regard­ing dis­clo­sure of evi­dence, set up a sys­tem to get rid of police…

The lat­est edi­tion of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund’s quar­ter­ly pub­li­ca­tion, Death Row USA,” is now avail­able on DPIC’s Web site. As of April 1, 2003, the num­ber of inmates on death rows across the nation is 3,525, a 5% decrease from the 3,701 report­ed April 1, 2002 (See Homepage). Also reported in…

Nevada law­mak­ers have giv­en final approval to a mea­sure that bans the use of three-judge pan­els in decid­ing whether the state should hand down death sen­tences to those con­vict­ed of cap­i­tal mur­der. Sentences have been hand­ed down by a pan­el of three judges when a jury can’t decide on a penal­ty, but that pro­ce­dure was called into ques­tion by the U.S. Supreme Court’s rul­ing in Ring v. Arizona. The new pro­ce­dure requires judges in cas­es involv­ing hung juries to decide…

More than 150 promi­nent res­i­dents of North Carolina have asked the House of Representatives and Governor Michael Easley to sup­port a two-year sus­pen­sion of exe­cu­tions in the state and to con­duct a death penal­ty study. North Carolina’s Senate passed the mea­sure in May, and a vote in the House is expect­ed this month. In a let­ter call­ing for the bil­l’s enact­ment into law, note­wor­thy North Carolinians, includ­ing for­mer judges and cor­po­rate lead­ers, noted that…

Two recent law jour­nals fea­ture col­lec­tions of arti­cles on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. The University of Missouri-Kansas City Law Review focus­es on wrong­ful con­vic­tions. The Summer 2002 issue includes arti­cles on DNA evi­dence, Innocence Projects around the coun­try, and the role of jour­nal­ism in help­ing to rec­ti­fy wrong­ful con­vic­tions. (70 University of Missouri-Kansas City Law Review 797 (2002)). The sec­ond new resource is the Summer 2002 edi­tion of the Northwestern…

A recent Atlantic Monthly arti­cle by Alan Berlow fea­tures a review of nev­er-before-seen sum­maries and relat­ed doc­u­ments used by then-Governor George Bush dur­ing his con­sid­er­a­tion of clemen­cy appeals filed by death row inmates in Texas. The arti­cle notes that Bush’s legal coun­sel, Alberto R. Gonzales, often pro­vid­ed the Governor with case sum­maries and doc­u­ments reflect­ing a​“clear pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al bias” and that Gonzales’s brief­in­gs failed to raise crucial issues…

Although New York Law School Professor Robert Blecker and Columbia Law School Professor James Liebman fre­quent­ly take oppos­ing sides in pub­lic debates on the death penal­ty, the two men recent­ly revealed their​“com­mon ground” through a co-authored opin­ion col­umn in the Houston Chronicle. Calling on leg­is­la­tors in Texas and else­where to enact a series of death penal­ty reforms to ensure accu­ra­cy and improve fair­ness, Blecker and…