Criminal Law

Faith statement: Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Call to End Capital Punishment

Posted on August 01, 2009
Presbyterians, guided by Scripture, believe that God has deep concern for those who are held captive or imprisoned. Throughout the Hebrew texts and New Testament, the prophets, and later, Jesus, call attention to those who are languishing in prisons and jails?encouraging followers to visit them, to advocate for them, and to share in their suffering...

Faith statement: United Methodist Church Call to End Capital Punishment

Posted on August 01, 2009
The Book of Discipline of the United Methodist Church on the Death PenaltyWe believe the death penalty denies the power of Christ to redeem, restore and transform all human beings. The United Methodist Church is deeply concerned about crime throughout the world and the value of any life taken by a murder or homicide...

A Poet Mourns

Posted on July 31, 2009
On Wednesday's edition of NPR's "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, poet Kathleen Sheeder Bonanno shares poetry from her new book Slamming the Door Open about the murder of her daughter, Leidy, in 2003. Leidy had just completed nursing school when an ex-boyfriend, angry about their break-up and the fact that Leidy caught him stealing her credit card information, broke into her apartment and strangled her with a telephone cord...

One Year Later: A Journey of Healing

Posted on July 28, 2009
One year ago yesterday, Jim David Adkisson entered the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville during a children's musical performance and began shooting. Before he was finally tackled by a courageous member of the congregation, Adkisson had killed 2 people--Linda Kraeger and Greg McKendry, an elder who attempted to block him from shooting other people--and wounded six...

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December 2nd Execution Date Set for Tennessee Inmate Cecil Johnson

Posted on July 22, 2009
The Tennessee Supreme Court has set a December 2nd execution date for Cecil Johnson, an inmate who has served on Tennessee's death row for 28 years. Johnson was convicted of the 1980 armed robbery and murders of three Nashvillians, including a 12 year-old boy...

Two Recent Exonerations Bring the Number of Death Row Exonerees to 135

Posted on July 15, 2009
On Thursday, July 9th, Herman Lindsey of Florida became the 135th death row exoneree since 1973 after the Florida Supreme Court unanimously ordered his freedom. The Court determined that there was not enough evidence to convict him of murdering a Fort Lauderdale pawnshop worker in 1994...

FUSE (Families United to Share and Empower) Meeting

Posted on July 13, 2009
For most families, when a loved one dies, their communities provide needed care and support. However, for families whose loved one is executed or lives on death row, there is frequently no such outpouring. In fact, most of these families suffer in silence, rarely sharing the pain and feelings of isolation with which they struggle...

Sixth Circuit Court Rules Against Harbison on Lethal Injection

Posted on July 02, 2009
Today the Sixth Circuit Court ruled against E.J. Harbison's challenge to Tennessee's lethal injection protocol holding that the U.S. Supreme Court's Baze decision, which upheld the constitutionality of Kentucky's lethal injection protocol, applies to Tennessee as well...

Georgia Death Row Inmate, Troy Davis, Safe Until September

Posted on June 29, 2009
Today the US Supreme Court revealed that there will be NO DECISION on the Troy Davis case until the court reconvenes in September. Supporters of Davis have been rallying for the Court to take up his case in order that evidence of his innocence finally be heard...

Court Rules the Convicted Have No Right to DNA Tests

Posted on June 18, 2009
On Thursday, June 18th, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that those convicted of a crime do not have the right to obtain DNA testing on evidence that could prove their innocence. The 5-4 decision involved the case of William Osborne, an Alaskan man convicted of assault, kidnapping, and sexual assault in 1993...

New Study Reveals Lack of Support for Deterrence Effect of the Death Penalty

Posted on June 17, 2009
Yesterday a new study entitled, ?Do Executions Lower Homicide Rates? The Views of Leading Criminologists,? was published in Northwestern University School of Law?s Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology. The study is authored by Professor Michael Radelet, Chair of the Department of Sociology at the University of Colorado-Boulder, and Traci Lacock, an attorney and Sociology graduate student in Boulder...

Connecticut's Governor Vetoes Abolition Legislation

Posted on June 08, 2009
On June 5, Connecticut's Governor, Jodi Rell, made good on her promise to veto legislation that would have abolished the death penalty in that state. The Governor had expressed her opposition to the measure all along and issued her promised veto last week...

Generations Against the Death Penalty TCASK Benefit Concert Review

Posted on June 03, 2009
Yesterday evening, June 2, nearly 120 people gathered in the Belcourt's 1925 Hall to hear the musical styling's of parent-child duos, Rodney Crowell and Chelsea Crowell, and Ranger Doug (from Rider's in the Sky) and James Green. The musicians, in collaboration with TCASK board member, Lauren Brown, developed a two-hour "in-the-round" style performance that touched the hearts of cowboy-western music enthusiasts and caressed the ears of lovers of poetic lyrics...

Paul Reid: A case of long-term, severe mental illness

Posted on June 01, 2009
Paul Dennis Reid suffers, not only from severe mental illness, but from a congenital brain defect. His brain is physically deformed as he is missing a portion of his left temporal lobe ? the part of the brain that processes information from other regions of the brain, facilitates memory, and helps integrate emotions with cognition...

Answering the hard questions: Cost

Posted on June 01, 2009
Capital Punishment is a far more expensive system than one whose maximum penalty is life without the possibility of parole.According to a New Jersey study conducted by New Jersey Policy Perspectives, between 1983 and 2005, N.J. taxpayers paid $253 million more for their death penalty system than they would have for a system that only seeks life without parole as its maximum punishment...

Answering the hard questions: Deterrence

Posted on June 01, 2009
"I have inquired for most of my adult life about studies that might show that the death penalty is a deterrent. And I have not seen any research that would substantiate that point." -U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno, January 21, 2000Consider the following:Generally, states without the death penalty have consistently lower murder rates than states with the death penalty...

Answering the hard questions: Innocence

Posted on June 01, 2009
"If statistics are any indication, the system may well be allowing some innocent defendants to be executed." -Justice Sandra Day O?ConnorConsider the following:Because human beings administer the death penalty system and because human beings are fallible, innocent people may have been executed in the past and will continue to be executed in the future...

Answering the hard questions: Mental illness

Posted on June 01, 2009
"Over the past thirty years, the number of people with mental illness and other mental disabilities on death row has steadily increased." -Mental Health AmericaInternational law clearly outlaws the execution of persons with mental illness. Virtually every country in the world prohibits the execution of those who are considered "insane...

Answering the hard problems: Race and the death penalty

Posted on June 01, 2009
"By reserving the penalty of death for black defendants . . . or for those convicted of killing white persons, we perpetuate the ugly legacy of slavery - teaching our children that some lives are inherently less precious than others."-Rev. Joseph E. Lowery, Former President, Southern Christian Leadership ConferenceSince 1977, the overwhelming majority of death row defendants (80%) have been executed for killing white victims, although whites make up only 50% percent of all homicide victims...

Answering the hard questions: Myth or fact?

Posted on June 01, 2009
Mtyh: The death penalty deters crime.Fact: Studies have repeatedly shown that the death penalty does not deter violent crime any more than other punishments such as life imprisonment. Eighty-eight percent of the country?s top criminologists do not believe the death penalty acts as a deterrent to homicide (Radelet and Lacock, 2009)...

Olen Hutchison: A case of severe sentencing disparity

Posted on June 01, 2009
Seven people were convicted of murdering Hugh Huddleston in 1988. Today, only Olen Hutchison faces the death penalty for that crime. Mr. Hutchison's death sentence is unjust when the major participants in the murder are either free or are eligible for parole...

Abu-Ali Abdur'Rahman: A case of ineffective assistance of counsel, prosecutorial misconduct, and severe mental illness

Posted on June 01, 2009
Abu-Ali Abdur'Rahman was convicted in 1987 of the murder of Patrick Daniels, who was stabbed to death in 1986.The quality of Abu-Ali Abdur'Rahman's representation at the guilt/innocence stage of his trial as well as the sentencing phase have been called into questions when his lawyers were supposed to defend him from the death penalty...

E.J. Harbison: A Case of Ineffective Counsel and Arbitrary Sentencing

Posted on June 01, 2009
E.J. Harbison, a poor, borderline mentally retarded, African-American man, with no prior criminal record, is currently scheduled to be executed in Tennessee pending the outcome of litigation concerning Tennessee's lethal injection protocols. Proponents tout the death penalty as being reserved for the worst of the worst, but Harbison's case demonstrates the emptiness of this claim...

Andrew Thomas: A case of flawed testimony

Posted on June 01, 2009
Andrew Thomas was convicted and sentenced to death in 2001 for the April 1997 robbery and shooting of an armored truck guard, James Day, while Day was leaving a Memphis Walgreens with a money deposit bag. However, new evidence calls this conviction into question...

Perry Anthony Cribbs: A case of inadequate defense and faulty eyewitness testimony

Posted on June 01, 2009
In November 1994, Perry Anthony Cribbs was wrongfully convicted of killing Linda Harris in Memphis, Tennessee with no physical evidence linking him to the crime. Cribbs' conviction was based on the questionable eyewitness identification of Harris' husband and the unreliable testimony of Cribbs' then mentally ill, drug addicted girlfriend...

Pervis Payne

Posted on June 01, 2009
In 1988, Pervis Payne, an African-American, was convicted in Shelby County and sentenced to death for the 1987 murders of Charisse Christopher, a white woman, and her two-year-old daughter, Lacie. He was also convicted and sentenced to thirty years for the attempted murder of Nicholas Christopher, Charisee Christopher's three-year-old son...

Paul Gregory House: A case of wrongful conviction and exoneration

Posted on June 01, 2009
In June of 2006, the United States Supreme Court ruled that in the case of Paul House "no reasonable juror viewing the record as a whole would lack reasonable doubt." In other words, no juror in America would find Paul House guilty of the 1985 murder of Carolyn Muncey...

Steve Henley: The Troubling Reality of Sentence Disparity

Posted on June 01, 2009
Steve Henley and Terry Flatt were convicted of the 1985 murders of Fred and Edna Stafford, an elderly couple living in Jackson County. All the evidence, including the motive for the crime, was provided by Terry Flatt, who made a deal with prosecutors and served just over five years...

Former Florida Warden Speaks Out

Posted on May 27, 2009
Yesterday the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty sent us this great op-ed posted on The Orlando Sentinel's web site by former Florida prison warden Ron McAndrew about why the death penalty is flawed and should be abolished. You'll find it here...

Connecticut Legislature Votes to Abolish the Death Penalty

Posted on May 22, 2009
Just after 4am this morning, the Connecticut Senate voted 19 to 17 to repeal that state's death penalty. This follows the unexpectedly overwhelming 90-56 vote in the House last week. The bill is now on its way to the desk of Connecticut Governor Jodi Rell, who in media reports is saying that she still supports the death penalty and is suggesting that she may veto the bill...

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