Criminal Law

Gaile Owens Gets More Time

Posted on December 16, 2009
The Tennessee Supreme Court has given death row inmate, Gaile Owens, additional time to argue against the state setting her execution date. Her attorneys argued that a court never fully examined evidence that she was abused by her husband which might have resulted in a sentence less than death...

Attorneys Ask for More Time In Gaile Owens' Case

Posted on December 15, 2009
Gaile Owens' attorneys have asked for additional time in preparing a defense against the setting of an execution date in her case. The state has requested that the Tennessee Supreme Court set an execution date for Owens after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected her final appeal...

Open File Discovery Op Ed in the Tennessean

Posted on December 14, 2009
I wrote an op ed that appeared in Sunday's Tennessean concerning Cecil Johnson's case and the lack of a statewide open file discovery policy in Tennessee. Such a policy would have almost certainly made a difference in the case's outcome. Read the article here...

State Requests a Date for Gaile Owens' Execution

Posted on December 09, 2009
The Tennessean is reporting that the state of Tennessee has officially asked the Tennessee Supreme Court to set an execution date for Gaile Owens, one of two women on Tennessee's death row. Owens was sentenced to death for the murder of her husband in 1986...

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Ohio Moves to One Drug Lethal Injection Protocol

Posted on December 08, 2009
Ohio death row inmate, Kenneth Biros, became the first person put to death by a single drug lethal injection protocol when he was executed earlier today. The single drug injection took 10 minutes to cause the inmate's death but removes concerns about unnecessary suffering that currently accompany the three-drug cocktail used across the country...

A Season to Remember

Posted on December 04, 2009
Last night, our intern, Diana, and I attended the Governor and First Lady's annual "Season to Remember" event at the state Capitol. This event provides murder victims' families in Tennessee a very meaningful and important opportunity to hang ornaments on wreaths in memory of their loves ones...

Ray Krone Visits Tennessee

Posted on December 03, 2009
Ray Krone, the 100th death row exoneree, spoke to a crowd of 200 at Belmont University and to 50 people at First Presbyterian Church in Cookeville yesterday, ironically the same day that the state executed Cecil Johnson. Krone's story is a powerful reminder of the flaws of the death penalty system and why the death penalty is not worth the risk...

Tennessee Executes Cecil Johnson

Posted on December 03, 2009
On Wednesday morning, December 2, Cecil Johnson was executed by the state of Tennessee after spending 28 years on Tennessee's death row. Johnson was convicted and sentenced to death for the murders of Bobbie Bell, Jr., Charles House, and James Moore in the 1980 robbery of Bell's Market in Nashville...

American Law Institute Resolves Death Penalty System Is "Intractably" Flawed

Posted on November 10, 2009
On October 23, 2009, the American Law Institute (ALI) Council voted overwhelmingly, with only a few abstentions, to accept the resolution of the capital punishment matter as approved by the Institute?s membership at the 2009 Annual Meeting in May. The resolution adopted at the Annual Meeting and now accepted by the Council reads as follows: ?For reasons stated in Part V of the Council?s report to the membership, the Institute withdraws Section 210...

Vanderbilt Law School Hosts Death Penalty Debate

Posted on November 05, 2009
At noon, on November 9, in Flynn Auditorium at Vanderbilt Law School, two leading death penalty scholars will debate the issue of capital punishment. Ken Hass, professor of sociology and criminal justice at the University of Delaware, and District Attorney, Joshua Marquis of Clatsop Co...

Tennessee Judge Makes History on Cost Ruling

Posted on October 29, 2009
A new development in the widely publicized trial of Lemaricus Davidson, found guilty this week of the brutal murders of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom in Knoxville: Judge Richard Baumgartner ruled today for the first time in Knox County judicial history that he will instruct Davidson's jury that it is more expensive to execute Davidson than to give him life without parole...

Former Texas Governor Changes His Mind on the Death Penalty

Posted on October 27, 2009
As I was driving to Memphis on Thursday for the Voices on the Death Penalty panel, I was listening to NPR. The topic was Texas Governor Rick Perry's decision to replace members of a state commission investigating the case of Cameron Todd Willingham. Willingham was executed in Texas in 2004 though national arson experts prior to his execution and more since, have stated that there was no arson in this case and that Willingham was wrongfully convicted and executed...

Voices on the Death Penalty Panel a Powerful Experience

Posted on October 26, 2009
Nearly 120 people turned out on a rainy Memphis evening to attend Voices on the Death Penalty: A Dialogue from the Front Lines. For over an hour, attendees heard the powerful stories of those who have been directly affected by the death penalty and why they now are working to end this public policy...

New Report Show that States Can't Afford the Death Penalty

Posted on October 20, 2009
"Thirty-five states still retain the death penalty, but fewer and fewer executions are taking place every year," said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC). "But the overall death row population has remained relatively steady...

Voices on the Death Penalty Panel at Rhodes College

Posted on October 16, 2009
On Thursday, October 22 at 7:00 at Rhodes College in Memphis, a panel of speakers will share their perspectives on the death penalty. Each of these panelists has been directly touched by this issue in a personal way. Paul and Joyce House will be there for their first time together speaking in a public forum...

justice denied, justice delayed

Posted on October 07, 2009
The story of Cameron Todd Willingham, an almost certainly innocent man executed in Texas, continues to garner national attention. The latest turn of events in the continuing saga of this case only demonstrates the obvious desperation of Texas Governor Rick Perry to keep the truth from coming out...

Death Penalty Awareness Week

Posted on September 30, 2009
This week is Death Penalty Awareness Week at Vanderbilt University, hosted by Amnesty International. Last night they kicked off the week with the showing of, At Death House Door. A good crowd showed up to watch the documentary that delves into the story of Carroll Pickett--the former Chaplain for the Texas Department of Corrections...

Shouting From the Rooftops

Posted on September 24, 2009
In 2006, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia wrote that there has not been "a single case - not one - in which it is clear that a person was executed for a crime he did not commit. If such an event had occurred in recent years, we would not have to hunt for it; the innocent's name would be shouted from the rooftops...

Article on Innocence with Tennessee Connections

Posted on September 21, 2009
I am on my way out of the office today but ran across this article and wanted to post it for folks to see. Read the story here.

Lawyers Plan to Stop Ohio from Second Execution Attempt

Posted on September 18, 2009
Lawyers for Ohio inmate Romell Broom will file lawsuits to stop the state from a second attempt to execute Broom. On Tuesday, an Ohio execution team worked for more than 2 hours trying to find a usable vein for the lethal injection process to proceed and finally stopped when Governor Ted Strickland intervened, giving Broom a week-long reprieve...

Ohio Execution Delayed Because of Vein Trouble

Posted on September 16, 2009
I saw this story when I got to the office this morning, and I was sickened by what I read. Yesterday, Ohio Governor Ted Strickland gave 53-year-old death row inmate, Romell Broom, a week long reprieve when Broom's execution team could not find a vein in his arm after working on him for more than two hours...

Tennessee Bar Journal Features Story on Death Penalty Study Committee

Posted on September 11, 2009
Long time criminal defense attorney and former director of the Tennessee Justice Project, Bill Redick, authored the cover story of the most recent edition of the Tennessee Bar Journal with his reflection on the work of the Tennessee Committee to Study the Administration of the Death Penalty...

Our Staff : Tennesseans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty

Posted on September 01, 2009
Stacy Rector, Executive Director Stacy Rector is a native of Dyersburg, Tennessee, a graduate of Rhodes College and Columbia Theological Seminary, and an ordained Presbyterian minister. She served as the Associate Pastor of Second Presbyterian Church in Nashville for nine years...

New Report Shows Texas Executed a Man in 2004 Who Was Most Likely Innocent

Posted on August 31, 2009
Some of us are already familiar with the tragic story of Cameron Todd Willingham. In fact, a few years ago, the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty published a resource called "Innocent and Executed" that featured the stories of four men who were most likely innocent and executed--three in Texas and one in Missouri...

Jury Gives Cobbins Life Without Parole

Posted on August 27, 2009
Last night, a Knoxville jury sentenced Letalvis Cobbins, the first of 4 defendants to stand trial for the carjacking, rapes, and murders of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom, the sentence of life without the possibility of parole. Read more here...

Reflecting on a Tragedy

Posted on August 24, 2009
By now, I imagine that most Tennesseans are aware of the trial underway in Knoxville for one of the four people charged in the carjacking, rape, and murders of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom, a young Knoxville couple, in 2007.Every aspect of this case is horrific...

Troy Davis Gets New Hearing

Posted on August 17, 2009
Today the U.S. Supreme Court ordered a federal judge in Georgia to consider and rule on the claim of innocence in the murder case against Troy Anthony Davis. The Court told the District Court to ?receive testimony and make findings of fact as to whether evidence that could have been obtained at the time of trial clearly establishes [Davis'] innocence...

Yes...The System is Broken

Posted on August 13, 2009
I recently read a story that appeared as a news report from Channel 6 WATE in Knoxville. The title of the story, "Many Say Tennessee Death Penalty System Broken."Of course, I was hopeful that the story would cover a number of the many problems highlighted by the Tennessee Study Committee including the lack of adequate defense attorneys and services for those on trial for capital murder, the lack of recorded interrogations, the lack of open file discovery procedures, the disproportionate numbers of those with severe mental illness on death row, the lack of more reliable eyewitness identification procedures, the lack of preservation and proper storage of biological evidence, etc...

North Carolina Legislature Takes a Stand for Justice

Posted on August 06, 2009
Yesterday, North Carolina's General Assembly approved making the state the second in the country, following Kentucky, to allow attorneys to use statistical data to demonstrate how racial bias factors into the decision of prosecutors to seek or jurors to impose the death penalty...

Faith Statement: Catholic Campaign to End Capital Punishment

Posted on August 01, 2009
"I renew the appeal... for a consensus to end the death penalty."-- Pope John Paul IISt. Louis, MO1/27/99Death penalty factsApproximately 3,300 people are on death row in the US; 89 of them in Tennessee.Since executions were reinstated in 1977, over 130 death row inmates have been exonerated; 2 in Tennessee...

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