Publications & Testimony

The fed­er­al gov­ern­ment intends to exe­cute Christopher Vialva (pic­tured) on September 24, 2020, the first time in near­ly 70 years it will have put any teenage offend­er to death. But accord­ing to a promi­nent cog­ni­tive neu­ropsy­chol­o­gist, the deci­sion to exe­cute Vialva is out of step with what sci­ence now knows about the work­ings of the adolescent…

A Florida man and an Arkansas woman, con­vict­ed of mur­der in sep­a­rate cas­es involv­ing junk sci­ence and pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct, have been exon­er­at­ed, decades after being wrongfully capitally…

NEWS (9/​15/​20) — Texas: A Bexar County tri­al court judge has issued an order with­draw­ing the death war­rant that had sched­uled Carlos Trevino’s exe­cu­tion for September 30, 2020. The court cit­ed ​“the cur­rent COVID-19 con­di­tions in Texas” as the grounds for postponement.

As the 2020 National Football League (NFL) season’s open­ing week­end began on Sunday, September 13, end zones were paint­ed with the words ​“End Racism” and ​“It Takes All of Us.” Six NFL teams remained in lock­er rooms for the National Anthem, and play­ers and one coach kneeled. After hav­ing been accused of black­balling play­ers who peace­ful­ly demon­strat­ed dur­ing the nation­al anthem, the NFL stat­ed in ear­ly September that “[t]he league is com­mit­ted to inte­grat­ing important causes…

The Death Penalty Information Center has released a major new report on race and the U.S. death penal­ty, pro­vid­ing an in-depth look at the his­tor­i­cal role race has played in the death penal­ty and detail­ing the per­va­sive impact racial dis­crim­i­na­tion con­tin­ues to have through­out every stage of a death penal­ty case today. Enduring Injustice: the Persistence of Racial Discrimination in the U.S. Death Penalty. released on September 15, 2020, also makes the case for why…

Leaders in the Tennessee African-American com­mu­ni­ty are urg­ing Governor Bill Lee and the state and fed­er­al courts to halt the exe­cu­tion of a Black death-row pris­on­er who may be both inno­cent and intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled and who has been denied access to the courts to review those…

NEWS (9/​11/​20) — Florida: Nearly one year after a Hillsborough County jury rec­om­mend­ed that Granville Ritchie be sen­tenced to death for the rape and mur­der of a 9‑year-old girl, Judge Michelle Sisco for­mal­ly imposed the death penal­ty in the case. The death sen­tence is the 14^th DPIC’s track­ing has ver­i­fied so far in 2020, more than a third of which have been imposed in Florida. It is the third death sen­tence DPIC is aware of that has been imposed since the coronavirus pandemic…

Two for­mer death-row pris­on­ers whose sen­tences were com­mut­ed by gov­er­nors in Illinois and Ohio more than a decade ago have been released from…

Eight years after his exon­er­a­tion from death row, an Ohio tri­al court judge has declared that Joe D’Ambrosio (pic­tured) was ​“wrong­ful­ly impris­oned.” The August 31, 2020 rul­ing by Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Judge Michael Russo moves D’Ambrosio one step clos­er to receiv­ing com­pen­sa­tion for the more than two decades he spent on death row as a result of prosecutorial…

Texas death-row pris­on­er Clinton Young (pic­tured), who came with­in days of exe­cu­tion in October 2017 while pros­e­cu­tors hid evi­dence of his inno­cence, has filed a claim for a new tri­al based upon pre­vi­ous­ly undis­closed evi­dence that an assis­tant dis­trict attor­ney who pros­e­cut­ed him was simul­ta­ne­ous­ly employed by the tri­al judge to pro­vide legal advice in his…