The Constitution Project's Death Penalty Committee has released a new report, Irreversible Error. It's available in Adobe .pdf format.
There will be a webcast at 12 noon EDT/11:00 a.m. CDT.
Here's more information from TCP:
The Constitution Project's Death Penalty Committee -- a bipartisan, blue-ribbon panel of criminal justice system experts -- is releasing a groundbreaking new report on the current administration of capital punishment in America. The report offers 39 specific policy recommendations addressing recent controversies in carrying out the death penalty, such as the secret procurement of drugs for use in lethal injection, as well as new ideas in a number of persistent areas of concern, including the continued lack of safeguards to prevent executing innocent people, ensuring the 6th Amendment right to effective counsel for defendants facing the death penalty, misuse of forensic evidence and the disproportionate application of capital punishment. Members of the panel will highlight the most salient recommendations from the report and answer audience questions.
WHO:
-- Mark White, former Governor of Texas, co-chair of Death Penalty Committee
-- Mark Earley, former Attorney General of Virginia, member of the Death Penalty Committee
-- Anthony Graves, justice advocate who was the 139th person to be exonerated from death row after being imprisoned for 18 years for a crime he did not commit
-- Megan McCracken, Eight Amendment Resource Counsel with the U.C. Berkeley School of Law's Death Penalty Clinic, expert in lethal injection practices
-- Nicole Sprinzen, Akin Gump (moderator)
Here are links to the news coverage:
"Blue-Ribbon Panel Proposes Reforms of Capital Punishment," is by Marcia Coyle of the National Law Journal.
Among the recommendations made in the report, titled “Irreversible Error,” are:
• Defendants should be entitled by statute to testing of forensic evidence if the results may be relevant to a claim of innocence or wrongful conviction. Law enforcement agencies should submit to DNA databanks unidentified profiles obtained from evidence in a capital case and DNA profiles of all convicted felons. Defendants should have access to databank searches.
• Custodial interrogations of a suspect in a homicide case should be videotaped or digitally recorded whenever practical. Video or audio recording of the entire custodial interrogation process should not require the suspect's permission.
• State and federal jurisdictions should adopt legislation to require that eyewitness identifications be conducted in accordance with best practices called for by prevailing scientific research.
• There should be a rebuttable presumption that a person with an IQ below 75 is intellectually disabled and therefore ineligible for the death penalty. The prosecution should be permitted to rebut the presumption by clear and convincing evidence. An IQ above 70 can be considered in determining whether the defendant has demonstrated intellectual disability by a preponderance of the evidence.
• A defendant who shows reckless indifference but does not personally kill, attempt to kill or intend that a killing take place should not be eligible for capital punishment. States should exclude from death eligibility those convicted under a felony-murder theory alone.
• Every jurisdiction that imposes capital punishment should create an independent authority to screen, appoint, train and supervise lawyers to represent defendants charged with a capital crime.
• Once a defendant has demonstrated that his or her counsel fell below the minimum standard of professional competence in death-penalty litigation, the burden should shift to the state to demonstrate that the attorney’s incompetence did not affect the outcome. There should be a strong presumption in favor of the attorney’s obligation to offer at least some mitigating evidence at the sentencing phase of a capital trial.
• Judges should be prohibited from overriding a jury’s recommendation of a sentence of less than death.
• All capital jurisdictions should establish charging review committees to review prosecutorial decisions in death-eligible cases. The committee would issue binding approval or disapproval of the proposed charges.
"Report urges end to drug mixtures in executions," is AP coverage by Pete Yost.
The New York Times reports, "Panel Urges One-Drug Lethal Injections," by Erik Eckholm.
"States should use a single drug for executions, criminal justice experts say," by Sari Horwitz for the Washington Post.
"Single-Drug Dose More Reliable for Lethal Injection, Report Says," by Devlin Barrett at the Wall Street Journal.
"Study of death penalty in U.S. calls for overhaul," by Timothy M. Phelps of the Los Angeles Times.
"Panel suggests fixes for death penalty in U.S.," by Evan Perez, CNN Justice Reporter.
The Guardian posts, "Drug cocktail in US executions banned from use on animals, says report," by Paul Lewis.
"Death penalty panel calls for massive overhaul," by Meredith Clark for MSNBC.
"Report calls for death penalty fixes," by Josh Gerstein at Politico.
"Ditch Death Penalty 'Cocktail,' Bipartisan Justice Panel Says," by Ryan J. Reilly for Huffington Post.
Related posts are in the report category index.
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