Publications & Testimony

An intellectually disabled Alabama death-row prisoner has appealed a federal district court ruling that clears the way for his execution on October 21, 2021. On October 17, a federal district court judge denied for a second time Willie B. Smith III’s claim that putting him to death by lethal injection violates his rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Lawyers for Smith (pictured) on October 19, 2021 filed a motion in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit to stay…

The Ohio Supreme Court has upheld the state’s execution process against a procedural challenge by two of the state’s death-row prisoners that sought to invalidate Ohio’s lethal-injection protocol. A unanimous Ohio Supreme Court ruled on October 19, 2021 that the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (ODRC) did not violate state law when it adopted a lethal-injection protocol without going through the state’s formal rulemaking process. In their suit, death-row prisoners Cleveland…

In a decision with potential to vacate a number of Oklahoma execution dates, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit has held that a lower federal court abused its discretion in dismissing six death-row prisoners from a lawsuit challenging the state’s execution protocol. The appeals court decision, issued on October 15, 2021, said that a ruling by Judge Stephen Friot of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma that six death-row prisoners who had not designated an…

Death-row exoneree Robert DuBoise (pictured) is suing the City of Tampa, four Tampa police officers, and the forensic odontologist who falsely testified against him, alleging that they fabricated evidence that led to his wrongful conviction and death sentence. DuBoise was exonerated in August 2020 after a Conviction Integrity Unit reviewed his case and new DNA evidence excluded him as the perpetrator of the rape and murder for which he was wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death 37 years…

A United States Supreme Court sharply divided along ideological lines heard oral argument October 13, 2021 on the Department of Justice’s appeal of a federal circuit court’s ruling overturning the death sentences imposed on Dzhokhar Tsarnaev for his convictions in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. Veteran court watchers reported that the six conservative justices seemed poised to overturn the federal appeal court’s grant of a new penalty phase hearing to Tsarnaev and to return the case to the…

A Texas judge has recommended that the conviction and death sentence of death-row prisoner Randy Halprin (pictured), who is Jewish, be overturned because of the religious bigotry of the judge presiding over his trial. In a statement of findings released on October 11, 2021, Dallas Criminal District Court Judge Lela Mays wrote that “Judge Vickers Cunningham possessed anti-Semitic prejudice against Halprin which violated Halprin’s constitutional right to a trial in a fair tribunal, equal…

A federal court in Texas has stayed the October 12, 2021 execution of Texas death-row prisoner Stephen Barbee on his claims that the state’s refusal to allow his spiritual advisor to administer last rites, touch him, or pray out loud in the execution chamber violates his constitutional and federal statutory rights to free exercise of religion. Judge Kenneth M. Hoyt of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas issued the stay on October 7, 2021, citing the U.S. Supreme Court’s…

At a ceremony commemorating the 40^th anniversary of France’s abolition of the death penalty, French President Emmanuel Macron (pictured) announced an initiative to advance worldwide abolition of capital punishment. The announcement also coincided with World Day Against the Death Penalty, which is observed annually on October 10. In January 2022, France will assume the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union. Macron said, “As part of the French presidency of the European Union…

In a decision that advocates say could clear the state’s death row, the Oregon Supreme Court (justices pictured) has overturned death-row prisoner David Ray Bartol’s death sentence because the crime he committed is no longer statutorily eligible for the death penalty. In 2019, the Oregon state legislature passed a new law that narrowly limits the crimes for which the death penalty may be imposed. The court on October 7, 2021 held without dissent that Bartol’s sentence violated the prohibition…

The number of women serving extreme sentences in the United States has increased sharply in the last decade, a September 2021 report by a collaborative of criminal law reform organizations has found. The report, In The Extreme: Women Serving Life Without Parole and Death Sentences in the United States, released September 22 by The Sentencing Project, the National Black Women’s Justice Institute, and the Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide, determined that the number of women serving…