Publications & Testimony

On November 20, 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court is sched­uled to con­fer­ence the case of Calvin McMillan, one of thir­ty-two Alabama death-row pris­on­ers whose death sen­tences were imposed by tri­al judges who over­rode jury rec­om­men­da­tions to sen­tence the defen­dants to life. McMillan has asked the Court to declare the prac­tice uncon­sti­tu­tion­al, and two jurors who vot­ed for life in judi­cial over­ride cas­es and three for­mer state court judges in states that had…

In a dra­mat­ic devi­a­tion from his­tor­i­cal prac­tices, the Trump Administration is poised to con­duct the first fed­er­al exe­cu­tions dur­ing a lame-duck pres­i­den­cy in more than a…

Lawyers for fed­er­al death-row pris­on­er Orlando Hall (pic­tured), who is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed on November 19, 2020, have filed a motion to stay his exe­cu­tion based upon evi­dence that his death sen­tence was a prod­uct of per­va­sive racial…

Bill Pelke (pic­tured, speak­ing to a group of stu­dents in Uganda in 2014), death penal­ty abo­li­tion­ist and founder of the Journey of Hope, died November 12, 2020 in Anchorage, Alaska. Pelke began his work to end the death penal­ty after his grand­moth­er, Ruth Pelke, was mur­dered in Indiana by four teenage girls. One of the per­pe­tra­tors, 15-year-old Paula Cooper, became the youngest per­son ever sen­tenced to death in Indiana. Moved by his Christian faith, Pelke worked to reverse Cooper’s death…

Two death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers in Kansas have filed a fed­er­al law­suit alleg­ing that the state’s pol­i­cy of auto­mat­ic soli­tary con­fine­ment for death-row pris­on­ers is uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. The two pris­on­ers, Sidney Gleason and Scott Cheever, have been held in iso­la­tion for 14 and 12 years, respec­tive­ly. Seven of the ten peo­ple on Kansas’ death row have been kept in soli­tary con­fine­ment for more than ten…

Lawyers for fed­er­al death-row pris­on­er Lisa Montgomery filed suit in fed­er­al dis­trict court in Washington, D.C. on November 12, seek­ing to stay her December 8 exe­cu­tion because the lead coun­sel in her case have con­tract­ed the…

A diverse coali­tion of more than 1,000 advo­cates, includ­ing cur­rent and for­mer pros­e­cu­tors, activists fight­ing sex traf­fick­ing and domes­tic vio­lence, and men­tal health orga­ni­za­tions, have joined forces to ask President Donald Trump to halt the upcom­ing exe­cu­tion of the only woman on fed­er­al death row, Lisa Montgomery…

The United States faced harsh crit­i­cism from the world com­mu­ni­ty for its con­tin­ued use of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment dur­ing a United Nations review of its human rights record on November 9, 2020. During the U.N. Human Rights Council Universal Periodic Review of the United States’ human rights record on November 9, 2020, coun­tries around the world crit­i­cized the U.S. for sys­temic racism, police vio­lence against civil­ians, sep­a­ra­tion of immi­grant fam­i­lies and intern­ment of immi­grant chil­dren, and use…

Lawyers for James Frazier (pic­tured), Ohio​’s old­est death-row pris­on­er, have filed a motion to pre­vent his exe­cu­tion, argu­ing that he has severe vas­cu­lar demen­tia that has ren­dered him unable to under­stand his…

Citing the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee has grant­ed a tem­po­rary reprieve to death-row pris­on­er Pervis Payne, halt­ing his sched­uled December 3, 2020 exe­cu­tion. The exe­cu­tion was the last sched­uled by any state in 2020, assur­ing that states will car­ry out few­er exe­cu­tions in 2020 than in any oth­er year since…