Publications & Testimony

Hung Thanh Le, a Vietnamese foreign national, is scheduled for execution on February 26^th in Oklahoma. Governor Brad Henry has so far rejected a unanimous recommendation from the Oklahoma Board of Pardon and Paroles to reduce Le’s death sentence to life in prison. Le’s appeal notes that he was not informed of his right to contact the Vietnamese consulate when he was arrested and may have been suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder stemming from the Vietnam war. Leaders of the…

Alan Gell of North Carolina became the nation’s 113^th exonerated death row inmate today, February 18, 2004. Gell, who has maintained his innocence since his 1998 conviction, was acquitted of all charges by a jury that deliberated for only two and a half hours at his retrial. In December 2002, a North Carolina judge vacated Gell’s murder conviction and ordered a new trial after ruling that prosecutors withheld important evidence that might have helped exonerate Gell at his first trial. Among the…

Rapid City Journal February 18, 2004 Editorial Last week the state Senate rejected a bill that would have repealed South Dakota’s death penalty law while passing a bill that removes capital punishment for individuals who committed their offense when they were less than 18 years old. The juvenile death penalty bill, SB182, passed the Senate, 23 – 11, and awaits a hearing in the House Judiciary Committee. Federal law and 29 other states have passed laws that prohibit capital punishment for…

Washington Post February 18, 2004 Editorial THE SUPREME COURT has announced that it will review the constitutionality of the death penalty for people who were children when they committed their crimes. But don’t expect Texas to stop executing juvenile offenders while the court does so. The Lone Star State has scheduled, through the end of June, the executions of four convicts for crimes committed while they were still underage. Unless the courts step in and stop these executions, Texas could…

The authors of a new study published in the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies (J. Blume, T. Eisenberg, & M. Wells, “Explaining Death Row’s Population and Racial Composition,” Vol. I, Issue 1, March 2004, at 165) concluded that Texas’ reputation as the leading death penalty state in the U.S. is attributable more to its high number of executions and the large number of murders in the state, rather than to its sentencing rate. Despite leading the country by far in terms of number of executions…

Federal prosecutors dropped charges against Darrell Rice shortly before he was to face capital charges for two murders in Shenandoah National Park. New forensic evidence cast doubt on the case against Rice, despite the fact that Attorney General John Ashcroft had made a public announcement of Rice’s indictment employing a new law in 2002. (Washington Post, Feb. 7, 2004). A federal judge threw out a jury’s (July 2003) verdict of guilt in the capital case of Jay Lentz, accused of murdering his…

Federal prosecutors dropped charges against Darrell Rice shortly before he was to face capital charges for two murders in Shenandoah National Park. New forensic evidence cast doubt on the case against Rice, despite the fact that Attorney General John Ashcroft had made a public announcement of Rice’s indictment employing a new law in 2002. (Washington Post, Feb. 7, 2004). A federal judge threw out a jury’s (July 2003) verdict of guilt in the capital case of Jay Lentz, accused of murdering his…

A Tennessee medical examiner who helped convict about a third of the state’s death row inmates has been indicted for faking an attack in which he was strapped with a homemade bomb around his neck. Dr. O’Brian Smith was found in 2002 wrapped head to toe in barbed wire and bound to window bars in his office, an incident investigators first believed was carried out by those who were angry with Smith for helping to convict Philip Workman and other inmates on Tennessee’s death row. The indictment…

Texas has scheduled the execution of four juvenile offenders between March and June of 2004 despite the fact that the U. S. Supreme Court has agreed to review whether such executions are constitutional. Arguments in Roper v. Simmons, No. 03 – 633, a case from Missouri where the state Supreme Court ruled that the execution of those under the age 18 at the time of their crime would be cruel and unusual punishment, are not expected to take place until this coming fall, months after the scheduled…

Yankton Daily Press February 10, 2004 Editorial South Dakota lawmakers have an opportunity this session to send an important message about the state’s system of criminal punishment and its notion of reform. The question is, which message will they choose to send? The answer can be found in SB182, a bill which would prohibit the execution of anyone under age 18 convicted in South Dakota of murder, aggravated kidnapping or terrorism. With the death penalty part of state law, it is possible…