Criminal Law

Fairness Committee Focuses on Defense

Posted on August 19, 2008
The Fairness subcommittee of the Tennessee Death Penalty Study Committee met for several hours yesterday in a thoughtful, yet at times frustrating, discussion on the importance of creating an independent authority in Tennessee to oversee capital defense services...

Abolitionist Leadership Training Institute

Posted on August 14, 2008
Last week, the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (NCADP) hosted a training in Washington D.C. The training was the First Annual Abolitionist Leadership Training Institute. It was held at Catholic University. States were asked to bring a team of 4 individuals to the training...

Tennessee Does Not Preserve DNA Evidence

Posted on August 08, 2008
In the ABA's 2007 report on Tennessee's death penalty system, Tennessee fully complied with only 7 of 93 guidelines for a fair and accurate system. The lack of preservation of DNA evidence was one of the failures of Tennessee's system.An article in yesterday's Tennessean highlights issues such as extra costs and storage space as reasons why Tennessee and other states are not preserving evidence...

California Report Indicts Death Penalty

Posted on August 06, 2008
The California Commission on the Death Penalty released its report on June 30, 2008, and I think it is important for Tennesseans, whose legislature is also examining the death penalty with the Tennessee Committee to Study the Administration of the Death Penalty, to reflect on what the California report found...

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News Story concerning Promptness Subcommittee

Posted on August 04, 2008
Last Thursday, the Promptness subcommittee of the Tennessee Study Committee on the Administration of the Death Penalty met for several hours with some compelling testimony and discussion.One topic concerned the creation of an independent coordinator for services available to surviving victims' families of first degree murder...

Knoxville Church Shooting Victim Drops Death Penalty Support

Posted on July 31, 2008
"Three days after being shot at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, Joe Barnhart's stance on capital punishment has weakened."That's the beginning of an article authored by Marti Davis that appeared in yesterday's Knoxville News Sentinel and can be read by clicking HERE...

Prayers and Thoughts for the Knoxville Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church

Posted on July 28, 2008
As most of you are probably aware, yesterday during a church youth performance of "Annie", a gunman opened fired at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville, killing 2 and wounding 7. The first to be killed was Greg McKendry, a longtime church member and usher...

Promptness Study Committee Meets

Posted on July 25, 2008
Yesterday the Promptness subcommittee of the Tennessee Death Penalty Study Committee met for four hours discussing issues from the length of time taken for post-conviction proceedings to exempting those with severe mental illness from the death penalty...

More National News for Paul House

Posted on July 24, 2008
Deborah Hastings, an AP National Writer has written a fantastic and comprehensive article covering the case of Paul House.Read it by clicking HERE.Highlights include: "Paul Gregory House has known many prisons. Death row. His own body ravaged by multiple sclerosis...

Maryland Anti-Death Penalty Activists Targeted

Posted on July 22, 2008
The ACLU released documents on Thursday that Maryland state police went undercover to spy on war protesters and anti-death penalty activists during 2005-2006. Documents show that during this year covert agents infiltrated groups like the Baltimore Pledge of Resistance, the Baltimore Coalition Against the Death Penalty as well as the Committee to Save Vernon Evans, a death row prisoner in Maryland...

Death Penalty Study Committee Meets

Posted on July 17, 2008
Yesterday the Fairness subcommittee of the Tennessee Committee to Study the Administration of the Death Penalty met for over three hours as they discussed the problems with defense representation in capital cases in Tennessee. The American Bar Association Report on Fairness and Accuracy of Tennessee's Death Penalty System released in 2007 states that "Tennessee's statutory qualification requirements for capital defense attorneys fall far short of the requirements of the ABA Guidelines for the Appointment and Performance of Defense Counsel in Death Penalty Cases and are insufficient to ensure qualified counsel for every death-sentenced inmate...

Another Possible Break for Paul House

Posted on July 10, 2008
Yesterday in a surprise move, District Attorney Paul Phillips stated that if Paul House's DNA is not found on a hair discovered in Carolyn Muncey's hand following her murder, he will consider dropping the charges against House. If the DNA from the hair or other evidence belongs to a third party, Phillips says he will not prosecute...

At Home with Paul House

Posted on July 08, 2008
I cannot express in words my gratitude to all of you who have followed the Paul House case over the years--who have written letters, made phone calls, sent financial support, attended events, and prayed for justice to be done in this case. All of us received a wonderful gift for our July 4th this year, when on Wednesday of last week, House was finally released...

Paul House Released

Posted on July 02, 2008
At approximately 10:00 a.m. this morning, Paul House was released from Lois M. Deberry Special Needs Facility. An anonymous donor provided Joyce House, Paul's mother, with the bail money in order for Paul to be released into the custody of his mother...

California Commission Calls Death Penalty "Dysfunctional"

Posted on July 01, 2008
Yesterday the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice created by the California State Senate released its landmark report on the death penalty. Their findings reveal that California's death penalty system is excessively costly and riddled with problems leading to lack of fairness and wrongful convictions...

Property Bond for House

Posted on June 30, 2008
This past Friday, Judge Jon Kerry Blackwood reduced Paul House's bail to $100,000. This reduction has allowed Joyce House, Paul's mother, to post a property bond to satisfy the bail. Paul House will be released into the custody of his mother--this week...

Paul House Is One Step Closer to Freedom

Posted on June 27, 2008
A bail reduction hearing for Paul House was held today in Union County in order for the court to reconsider the amount of bail required for House's release. At the June 6th hearing, bail was set at $500,000, an exorbitant amount for a man in a wheelchair who is not a threat to the public nor a flight risk...

Fine Journalism for Paul House

Posted on June 27, 2008
Reporter Sarah Kelley and the Nashville Scene continue to show a commitment to fully exposing the story behind the case of Paul House. Kelley's most recent article was the cover story for the latest issue of the Scene and it does not disappoint. The story is comprehensive and gives the reader a full understanding of what the House and the Muncey families have been forced to bear through for the past 23 years--a flawed system concerned more about convictions and vindictive practice than true justice...

Supreme Courts Rules on Kennedy v. Louisiana

Posted on June 25, 2008
The U.S. Supreme Court has released its opinion in Kennedy v. Louisiana, regarding the constitutionality of sentencing a person to death for the rape of a child in which no murder occurs. Patrick Kennedy is the first person in the country in the modern era of the death penalty to receive such a sentence...

Both Sides Agree System is Broken

Posted on June 23, 2008
Today's Nashville City Paper featured an excellent article written by John Rodgers reporting from the Promptness Sub-Committee meeting of the Committee to Study the Administration of the Death Penalty. You can read more about the sub-committee meetings in previous blog posts...

Study Committee Resumes Work

Posted on June 20, 2008
Yesterday, the Tennessee Committee to Study the Administration of the Death Penalty resumed its work after several months of inactivity because of the legislative session. The Committee divided into three sub-committees in order to attempt to cover the enormous amounts of material which must be examined by year's end...

Sixth Circuit Hears House Case Again

Posted on June 17, 2008
In a surprise move, a three judge panel of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals gathered in Nashville today to consider an appeal filed by Paul House which claims that the state should by barred from re-trying the case. House?s federal defender, Steve Kissinger, argued that the state is not in compliance with Judge Mattice?s December 7, 2007 order which asserted that House should be retried or released in 180 days...

More about Richard Austin

Posted on June 13, 2008
In today's Tennessean, Dwight Lewis wrote an interesting column concerning the case of Richard Austin, the oldest and longest serving inmate on Tennessee's death row, who recently died at the DeBerry Special Needs Facility here in Nashville. Lewis discusses the history of the case, a history that I didn't even know...

Ohio Must Change Lethal Injection Drugs

Posted on June 11, 2008
Yesterday, Ohio Judge James Burge ruled that the state's method of putting a prisoner to death is unconstitutional because two of the three drugs used for the injection can cause "an agonizing and painful death." The decision means that Ohio must stop using the two risky drugs, pancuronium bromide (pavulon), a paralytic which has been outlawed by veterinarians, as well as potassium chloride, which stops the heart and can cause excruciating pain if the inmate is not properly anesthetized...

Longest Serving Tennessee Death Row Inmate Dies

Posted on June 10, 2008
We received word yesterday from the Tennessee Department of Correction that Richard Austin, the state's oldest and longest serving death row inmate, died at DeBerry Special Needs Facility in Nashville on Sunday. Austin was sentenced to death in 1978 after a conviction in Shelby County of accessory before the fact to murder...

TCASK Board Retreat

Posted on June 09, 2008
This past weekend TCASK held its annual Board retreat at Pickwick Lake in Southwest Tennessee at the lake home of our incoming Board Chair, Reverend Amy Howe and her husband, Dave. The purpose of such a retreat is to gather the board in a special location, develop a multi-year strategic plan, and build camaraderie amongst the board and staff of TCASK...

Paul House Bail Hearing Update

Posted on June 06, 2008
Earlier today in Maynardville at the Union County Court House, bail was set at $500,000 for Paul House. House has been assigned a public attorney and there will be another hearing on June 27 to entertain arguments from the defense to reduce the bail amount...

How Difficult Can it Be

Posted on June 05, 2008
This might come off as macabre. But seriously, in the year 2008 how difficult can it be to willingly kill a man? It continues to prove difficult as executioners in Georgia took 35 minutes to find a suitable vein to execute Curtis Osborne; he was pronounced dead 14 minutes after the first drugs entered his body...

Last Rights

Posted on June 04, 2008
Last night Rev. Joseph Ingle spoke about the re-release of his book ?Last Rights? and personally signed copies. The talk, at Davis Kidd Booksellers, was attended by over 40 people and was covered by CSPAN. ?Last Rights? tells 13 stories of 13 different death row inmates that Rev...

Richard Taylor Receives Life Sentence

Posted on June 03, 2008
Press Release from the ACLU:NASHVILLE ? A severely mentally ill man who spent 18 years on death row and whose conviction and death sentence were reversed by a Tennessee appeals court in March was sentenced to life imprisonment today. Richard Taylor, twice forced to stand trial despite his severe mental illness, agreed to the sentence in exchange for pleading guilty to the 1981 murder of a Tennessee prison guard ? a crime committed only after prison officials stopped giving Taylor his anti-psychotic medication...

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