Publications & Testimony

A three-judge pan­el in Madison County, Ohio has acquit­ted a man pros­e­cu­tors charged with cap­i­tal mur­der for alleged­ly set­ting his car on fire to burn down his house with his wife and…

In a con­tin­u­ing diminu­tion of pro­ce­dur­al safe­guards in cap­i­tal cas­es, the Florida Supreme Court has end­ed its long-stand­ing prac­tice of inde­pen­dent­ly review­ing death penal­ty cas­es on appeal to ensure that they are not dis­pro­por­tion­ate to sen­tences imposed in…

NEWS (10/​30/​20) — Florida: The Florida Supreme Court has upheld the con­vic­tion and death sen­tence of Jonathan Lawrence in an opin­ion that removed yet anoth­er appel­late safe­guard for the state’s death-row pris­on­ers. In the case, the new far-right major­i­ty of the court end­ed the 50-year-old prac­tice of con­duct­ing an inde­pen­dent pro­por­tion­al­i­ty review of a death sen­tence to determine…

To rein in the social and eco­nom­ic costs caused by the over­ly aggres­sive use of the death penal­ty by pros­e­cu­tors, a California legal schol­ar is propos­ing a plan he believes will reduce mis­car­riages of jus­tice and increase prosecutorial…

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia con­tin­ues to use the death penal­ty against peo­ple accused of crimes com­mit­ted as juve­niles, despite a roy­al decree claim­ing to ban that prac­tice, human rights orga­ni­za­tions and defense…

Calling California cap­i­tal sen­tenc­ing pro­ceed­ings​“infect­ed by racism,” Governor Gavin Newsom (pic­tured) has filed a brief in the California Supreme Court sup­port­ing a death-row prisoner’s claim that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment as cur­rent­ly prac­ticed in the state vio­lates the California penal code and the…

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…