Policy Issues
Innocence
,New Voices
,Oct 19, 2018
As Capital Retrial Begins, Former Judge Says Defendant Should Not Be Convicted
As Seminole County prosecutors seek the death penalty against Clemente Javier Aguirre-Jarquin a s…
Innocence
,New Voices
,Oct 19, 2018
As Seminole County prosecutors seek the death penalty against Clemente Javier Aguirre-Jarquin a s…
Costs
,Representation
,New Voices
,Nov 10, 2008
Utah’s Supreme Court recently expressed concern that the lack of qualified defense attorneys for indigent death row inmates could unravel capital sentences. In a unanimous decision in the case of death row inmate Michael A…
Recent Legislative Activity
,Sentencing Data
,United States Supreme Court
,New Voices
,Jan 28, 2016
In an op-ed for the Orlando Sentinel, former Florida Supreme Court Justice Raoul Cantero (pictured) and ABA Death Penalty Assessment Team member Mark Schlakman call on the Florida legislature to repair the constitutional …
Arbitrariness
,Executions Overview
,Nov 02, 2020
In a continuing diminution of procedural safeguards in capital cases, the Florida Supreme Court has ended its long-standing practice of independently reviewing death penalty cases on appeal to ensure that they are not disproportionate to sentences…
New Voices
,Lethal Injection
,Feb 13, 2017
In a guest column for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, retired federal appeals court judge Nathaniel R. Jones (pictured) urged Ohio to “reconsider its race to death” in scheduling executions while the constitu…
Victims' Families
,New Voices
,Federal Death Penalty
,Nov 13, 2019
Hundreds of former state and federal judges, prosecutors, law enforcement and corrections officials, and family members of homicide victims have signed on to a series of letters urging the federal government to halt the five federal executions sch…
United States Supreme Court
,New Voices
,Feb 17, 2016
In a recent Washington Times op-ed, two former state supreme court chief justices argue that a state supreme court justice who, as district attorney, had authorized the capital prosecution of a defendant, should not have later participate…
Sentencing Alternatives
,May 26, 2022
A Missouri judge has rejected the state’s first jury recommendation for a death sentence in nine years, and has instead re-sentenced former death-row prisoner Marvin D. Rice (pictured) to life without parole. …
Innocence
,International
,Representation
,Upcoming Executions
,Conditions on Death Row
,Mar 02, 2022
Lawyers for Texas death-row prisoner Melissa Lucio (pictured) have moved to vacate her April 27, 2022 execution date and remove the judge and district attorney in her case because of conflicts of interest stemming…
Jun 26, 2003
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 pas…
Costs
,New Voices
,May 03, 2006
Ronald George (pictured), Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court, recently called the state’s death penalty “dysfunctional” and criticized state lawmakers for their unwillingness to adequately fund the state’s capital punishment system. The…
Costs
,New Voices
,Mar 03, 2008
During his 15-year tenure on the court, Orange County Superior Court Judge Donald McCartin sentenced nine men to death. Now retired, Judge McCartin no longer believes in the death penalty. “It’s a waste of time and taxpayers’ money,” Judge McCarti…
Clemency
,New Voices
,Jan 31, 2006
More than two decades after Ventura County Superior Court Judge Charles R. McGrath condemned Michael Morales to die, McGrath is asking California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to grant clemency because the conviction was likely based on false tes…
Recent Legislative Activity
,New Voices
,Jan 13, 2006
A group of 40 law enforcement officers, current and former prosecutors, and judges at the state and federal level have urged California lawmakers to enact a temporary halt to executions in the state while a commission examines the accuracy and fai…
New Voices
,Oct 17, 2006
In a recent speech to law students from Furman University, William W. Wilkins, the Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, expressed doubts about the value of the death penalty given its high costs and pro…
Arbitrariness
,Innocence
,New Voices
,Oct 23, 2006
Judge Carolyn Dineen King of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit was the main speaker at the “Red Mass” on October 4 at the Catholic cathedral in Corpus Christi, Texas. The Red Mass is an annual liturgy held for members of the legal pr…
New Voices
,Federal Death Penalty
,May 08, 2007
U.S. District Judge S. James Otero recently halted the penalty phase of a federal capital case in Los Angeles and told prosecutors that he believes the U.S. Justice Department should reconsider its decision to seek the death penalty for Petro “Pet…
Costs
,Representation
,New Voices
,Aug 30, 2007
Arthur L. Alarcon, a senior judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in Los Angeles, sharply criticized California’s death penalty system and chided lawmakers for failing to provide adequate representation and fundi…
Arbitrariness
,New Voices
,Jul 27, 2007
Judge Boyce F. Martin, Jr. (pictured) of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit called the death penalty “arbitrary, biased, and so fundamentally flawed at its very core that it is beyond repair.” Judge Martin dissented in the case of Getsy…
Innocence
,Victims' Families
,New Voices
,Jan 03, 2005
In an interview with The New York Times, Judge Jed S. Rakoff (pictured) discussed his reasons for finding the federal death penalty to be unconstitutional. Judge Rakoff ruled in April 2002 that the death penalty failed to secure due process becaus…
New Voices
,Federal Death Penalty
,Jan 30, 2007
U.S. District Judge Frederick Block recently told federal prosecutors that pursuing a death sentence for Kenneth McGriff would be an “absurd” waste of time and money. According to a court transcript, while jurors were on a break during closing arg…
Costs
,New Voices
,Federal Death Penalty
,Mar 03, 2008
Federal District Court Judge Jack B. Weinstein said recently that seeking the death penalty against Humberto Pepin Taveras in New York is not worth the effort of prosecutors or taxpayers’ money. “Based on the history of cases tried in metropolitan…
Arbitrariness
,Innocence
,Intellectual Disability
,Mental Illness
,New Voices
,May 24, 2016
I. Beverly Lake, Jr. — a staunch supporter of North Carolina’s death penalty during his years as a State Senator and who, as a former Chief Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court, repeatedly voted to uphold death sentences — has …
Nov 29, 2004
William S. Sessions, who served as director of the FBI from 1987 to 1993, and Charles F. Baird, a former Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Judge from 1990 to 1998, have called for a halt to executions in Texas because of the risk of…
New Voices
,Jul 03, 2008
Gerald Kogan, former Chief Justice of the Florida Supreme Court, who has also served as a prosecutor, defense attorney, and trial judge, recently expressed concerns about Florida’s death penalty system. “Florida’s system of capita…
Nov 17, 2004
Former Missouri Supreme Court Chief Justice Charles Blackmar recently reiterated his opposition to the death penalty and his concerns about wrongful convictions, noting that the exoneration of Missouri death row inmate Joseph Amrine “makes me wond…
Jul 18, 2003
Charles B. Blackmar, senior judge of Missouri’s Supreme Court from 1982 – 1992, recently called for consideration of abolishing the death penalty. In a letter to the editor that appeared in the Kansas City Star, Blackmar stated: Mos…
Sentencing Alternatives
,New Voices
,Jan 17, 2007
In an opinion piece in the New York Times, former New Jersey Supreme Court Justice Peter G. Verniero (pictured) said that the state should replace its flawed death penalty with the sentence of life without parole. Vernier…
Arbitrariness
,Deterrence
,Recent Legislative Activity
,New Voices
,Mar 27, 2014
Two former justices of the New Hampshire Supreme Court recently voiced their support for repealing the death penalty. In an op-ed, Joseph Nadeau (l.) and John Broderick (r.) emphasized the death penalty’s lack of deterrent effect,…
Arbitrariness
,New Voices
,May 20, 2008
Former members of the New Jersey Supreme Court recently shared their insights on the death penalty at a symposium sponsored by Seton Hall and Fordham law schools, and by the the New York City and New Jersey State Bar associations.…
New Voices
,Oct 22, 2007
A former Tennessee Attorney General, W.J. Cody, and a U.S. Court of Appeals Judge, Gilbert Merritt, both members of the American Bar Association’s Tennessee Death Penalty Assessment Team, called on policymakers to thoroughly review the state’s cap…
Arbitrariness
,Race
,Representation
,New Voices
,Jan 17, 2019
Retiring Texas Court of Criminal Appeals judge and former prosecutor Elsa Alcala now believes that the death penalty is unreliably and discriminatorily applied in the nation’s most aggressive capi…
Sentencing Alternatives
,Victims' Families
,New Voices
,Jan 29, 2008
Maryland Judge Joseph P. Manck sought to lessen the pain and frustration to the victims’ family by sentencing a defendant to life in prison without the possibility of parole instead of the death penalty. In choosing a life sentenc…
Feb 24, 2004
In a report filed by the Kansas Judicial Council Death Penalty Advisory Committee, retired Kansas Supreme Court Justice Fred N. Six noted that capital punishment cases pose immense burdens on judges. He stated: Always in the cons…
Arbitrariness
,New Voices
,Dec 17, 2008
The Presiding Justice of the Mississippi Supreme Court, Oliver Diaz, dissented in a recent capital case, Doss v. Mississippi, stating he had come to the conclusion that the death penalty …
New Voices
,Jul 22, 2015
In a recent article for the Georgetown Law Journal, Judge Alex Kozinski of the U.S. Court of Appeals for t…
Arbitrariness
,New Voices
,Jan 28, 2013
Ohio Supreme Court Justice William O’Neill recently voted to strike down the death penalty, when he dissented in an order setting an execution date for Jeffrey Wogenstahl. Justice O’Neill wrote, “I would hold that capital punishme…
Mental Illness
,New Voices
,Nov 01, 2006
Justice Evelyn Lundberg Stratton of the Ohio Supreme Court called upon the legislature to exempt defendants with serious mental illness from the death penalty. Judge Stratton concurred in the affirmance of the death sentence for Donald Ketterer. S…
Oct 27, 2004
Judge Tom Price, a 30-year veteran Republican jurist on Texas’s highest criminal court, recently stated that those on the state’s death row convicted with evidence from the Houston Police Department crime lab should not be executed until questions…
Nov 10, 2003
In a Seattle Times op-ed reflecting on the plea agreement for serial killer Gary Ridgway resulting in a life without parole sentence (read more), Washington State Superior Court Judge David A. Nichols sta…
Clemency
,New Voices
,Jun 14, 2018
The Ohio Parole Board held a hearing on June 14, 2018 to consider clemency for death-row prisoner Raymond Tibbetts, whose February 13 execution was halted by Governor John Kasich
Arbitrariness
,Sentencing Alternatives
,New Voices
,Apr 03, 2006
The Washington State Supreme Court recently came within one vote of effectively abolishing the state’s death penalty when it ruled in the case of death row inmate Dayva Cross. Cross is on death row for the murder of his wife and her two teenage da…