Publications & Testimony

Despite its defeat at the polls on November 3, the Trump admin­is­tra­tion is press­ing for­ward with efforts to con­duct an his­tor­i­cal­ly unprece­dent­ed num­ber of lame duck exe­cu­tions and in announc­ing new fed­er­al cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tions that it will not be in posi­tion to carry…

South Carolina has issued a death war­rant to exe­cute Richard Moore (pic­tured) on December 4, 2020, but, his lawyers say, the state has refused to tell him how it intends to carry it…

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…

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…