Publications & Testimony

Amy Coney Barrett has been con­firmed as a jus­tice of the Supreme Court of the United States, fill­ing the vacan­cy cre­at­ed by the death of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Shortly after her con­fir­ma­tion by the U.S. Senate on October 26, 2020, Justice Clarence Thomas admin­is­tered the oath of office to Barrett in an out­door cer­e­mo­ny on the South Lawn of…

The leader of the world’s sec­ond largest Christian denom­i­na­tion has joined with the Roman Catholic Church in declar­ing the death penal­ty fun­da­men­tal­ly incom­pat­i­ble with Christian teach­ings. In an inter­view with Vatican News on October 20, 2020, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, the head of the Eastern Orthodox Church, called oppo­si­tion to the death penal­ty​“the log­i­cal and moral con­se­quence” of adher­ence to Christian…

NEWS (10/​22/​20) — Florida: The Florida Supreme Court has upheld the con­vic­tion and death sen­tence for Daniel Craven, Jr. for a 2015 prison mur­der. The court denied Craven’s claims that he was uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly denied the right to rep­re­sent him­self and that the tri­al court had vio­lat­ed his right to a fair jury by impan­el­ing an African-American juror whom defense coun­sel had attempt­ed to peremp­to­ri­ly strike. It also…

Prosecutors or police used or threat­ened to use the death penal­ty as a coer­cive tool that led to or extend­ed the wrong­ful con­vic­tions of at least nine­teen peo­ple who were exon­er­at­ed in 2019, a Death Penalty Information Center analy­sis of data from the National Registry of Exonerations has revealed. Nearly 95% of those cas­es also involved some oth­er form of major mis­con­duct, the DPIC…

Expressing the hope​“that we’ll be able to cel­e­brate very soon, togeth­er with the American peo­ple, the abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty in the United States,” European Union Ambassador to the United States Stavros Lambrinidis opened the EU in the USA and Council of the Europe​’s vir­tu­al com­mem­o­ra­tion of World and European Day Against the…

A Wyoming woman whose moth­er and hus­band were mur­dered in sep­a­rate inci­dents is call­ing on the state to repeal its death penal­ty for the ben­e­fit of victims’…

In his first inter­view since his September 24, 2020 exon­er­a­tion, for­mer Mississippi death-row pris­on­er Curtis Flowers (pic­tured) spoke with In the Dark pod­cast host and lead reporter Madeleine Baran about his 24-year jour­ney to free­dom after hav­ing being framed, tried six times, sent to death row and final­ly freed for a mur­der every­one involved knew full well he had…

The fed­er­al gov­ern­ment intends to con­tin­ue its unprece­dent­ed exe­cu­tion spree into December, sched­ul­ing the exe­cu­tions of the first woman and the youngest offend­er put to death by fed­er­al author­i­ties in near­ly sev­en decades. In a Friday evening announce­ment, the U.S. Department of Justice announced on October 16, 2020 that it had set the exe­cu­tion of Lisa Montgomery (pic­tured) for December 8 and Brandon Bernard…

NEWS (10/​16/​20) — Texas: A divid­ed Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) has upheld Kousol Chanthakoummane’s con­vic­tion and death sen­tence, which he argued had been obtained with junk bite mark tes­ti­mo­ny, hyp­no­tized wit­ness­es, and questionable…

A divid­ed Ohio Supreme Court has agreed to hear the appeals of two death-row pris­on­ers who are chal­leng­ing the legal­i­ty of the state’s exe­cu­tion pro­to­col. By votes of 4 – 3, the court on October 13, 2020 accept­ed for review appeals by Cleveland Jackson (pic­tured) and James O’Neal assert­ing that Ohio’s exe­cu­tion pro­to­col is invalid because the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (ODRC) adopt­ed it in violation…