Publications & Testimony

South Carolina correctional staff who participated in executions suffered life-altering trauma that was worsened by an inflexible prison administration that provided little support to address the psychological injuries they sustained. Two senior staff members are now on disability, unable to work, and are suffering from Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Depression. A third member of the execution team ended his own life by suicide. These revelations are just part of an emotional report in the…

A Nashville judge has for a second time approved a plea deal that would remove Abu-Ali Abdur’Rahman from Tennessee’s death row and resentence him to life without possibility of parole. On November 9, 2021, Davidson County Criminal Court Judge Monte Watkins entered an order overturning Abdur’Rahman’s 1987 conviction based on former Davidson County Assistant District Attorney General John Zimmerman’s unconstitutional use of discretionary strikes to remove African Americans from the jury. The…

The United States Supreme Court heard argument November 9, 2021 to review Texas death-row prisoner John Henry Ramirez’s claim that the state’s refusal to allow his pastor to “lay hands” on him or pray audibly during his execution violates the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) and his First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion. The Court appeared troubled by Ramirez’s religious freedom claims, but some conservative justices openly worried that…

Nevada prosecutors have asked a federal judge to expedite a decision on the constitutionality of the state’s execution process, saying accelerated review is necessary if the state is to execute Zane Floyd before its supply of a questionably obtained lethal-injection drug expires on February 28, 2022. On November 5, 2021, Chief Deputy Nevada Attorney General Randall Gilmer told U.S. District Court Judge Richard Boulware II that the state’s supply of the anesthetic ketamine, one of the drugs in…

New public opinion polls show that, consistent with national trends, support for the death penalty is declining in the conservative strongholds of Utah and Oklahoma. A Deseret News/Hinckley Institute of Politics poll released on October 27, 2021 reported that 51% of Utah voters surveyed said they “oppose eliminating the death penalty” as a sentencing option. By contrast, in 2010, 79% of Utah voters said that they favored the death penalty. A public opinion poll by Cole Hargrave Snodgrass &…

The Florida Attorney General’s office has taken steps to block DNA testing agreed to by local prosecutors and approved by the trial court for two Florida death-row prisoners who have professed their innocence for more than four decades. Attorney General Ashley Moody has announced she will appeal an October 15, 2021 ruling by Florida Circuit Court Judge Wayne C. Wooten that her office lacked standing to contest Wooten’s prior order granting DNA testing to death-row prisoner Henry Sireci. Moody…

In a ruling that provoked a sharp dissent from the Court’s liberal minority, the U.S. Supreme Court has declined to review the case of a death-row prisoner whom prosecutors and defense lawyers agree is not eligible for the death penalty as a result of recent revisions of the definition of intellectual disability by the medical community. Rebuffing a joint request by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and defense lawyers, the Court on November 1, 2021 denied a petition by federal death-row…

The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board has for a second time recommended that Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt grant clemency to death-row prisoner Julius Jones (pictured during the clemency hearing). Following a hearing on November 1, 2021, the board, citing doubts about Jones’ guilt, voted 3 – 1 to ask Stitt to commute his death sentence to life imprisonment with the possibility of parole. Jones, who is Black, is scheduled to be executed November 18 on charges that he murdered Paul Howell, a white…

A Texas district court judge has recommended that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) deny death-row prisoner Rodney Reed’s innocence claim and allow his conviction and death sentence to stand for the 1996 murder of Stacey Stites. In a November 1, 2021 decision after ten days of testimony in July and closing statements in October, Bastrop County District Court Judge J.D. Langley issued Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law and Recommendations that Reed’s conviction should be upheld. In so…

Two former Alabama governors, one a Democrat and one a Republican, have expressed serious doubts about the death penalty in the state and across the country. In interviews with Birmingham television reporter Lee Hedgepeth in advance of the October 21, 2021 execution of Alabama death-row prisoner Willie B. Smith III, Democrat Don Siegelman (pictured, left) and Republican Robert Bentley (pictured, right), both said they now have significant reservations about the death penalty. Siegelman, who…