Publications & Testimony

Over the objec­tions of Native American lead­ers across the coun­try, the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment on August 26, 2020 exe­cut­ed Lezmond Mitchell (pic­tured), the sole Native-American pris­on­er on fed­er­al death row. Mitchell, a Navajo cit­i­zen, became the first Native American exe­cut­ed by the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment for a crime com­mit­ted against a mem­ber of his own tribe on tribal…

As the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment began to car­ry out the sec­ond round of exe­cu­tions it has sched­uled for 2020, autop­sy results from the first round of exe­cu­tions in July sug­gest to a ​“vir­tu­al med­ical cer­tain­ty” that fed­er­al death-row pris­on­ers will expe­ri­ence ​“excru­ci­at­ing pain” while they are being put to death by lethal injection with…

Ruling in one of the most sen­sa­tion­al­ized tri­als of the ear­ly 2000s, the California Supreme Court has over­turned the death sen­tence imposed on Scott Peterson for the mur­ders of his preg­nant wife, Laci, and their unborn son in December 2002. The court upheld Peterson’s con­vic­tions for the two…

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and American Civil Liberties Foundation have filed a law­suit against the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) seek­ing a court order requir­ing the BOP to dis­close how much the fed­er­al government’s resump­tion of fed­er­al exe­cu­tions is cost­ing tax­pay­ers and what steps the gov­ern­ment has under­tak­en to assess and address the COVID-19 pub­lic health risks cre­at­ed by the exe­cu­tions. ​“As the nation faces both dire pub­lic health and economic crises,”…

Declaring that “[r]acism still exists and has no place in soci­ety,” the Tennessee Supreme Court on June 25, 2020 direct­ed its Access to Justice Commission (AJC) to cre­ate ​“a new ini­tia­tive to iden­ti­fy and elim­i­nate bar­ri­ers to racial and eth­nic fair­ness and jus­tice.” The court’s pro­nounce­ment, at the height of the racial jus­tice protests that swept the nation fol­low­ing the mur­der of George Floyd by a white Minneapolis police offi­cer, was meant to sig­nal its concern about…

As fed­er­al courts in Washington, D.C. and California declined to halt the exe­cu­tion of Lezmond Mitchell, the National Congress of American Indians, thir­teen trib­al gov­ern­ments, and more than 230 mem­bers from more than 90 U.S. tribes joined Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez in ask­ing President Donald Trump to com­mute the death sen­tence of the sole Native American on fed­er­al death row. Native-American commentators also…

In a polit­i­cal maneu­ver that fur­ther inject­ed issues of race, gen­der, and polit­i­cal dis­en­fran­chise­ment into local law enforce­ment pol­i­cy, Missouri’s Republican Governor Mike Parson has asked state law­mak­ers to grant Republican state attor­ney gen­er­al Eric Schmitt author­i­ty to pros­e­cute mur­der cas­es in the city of St. Louis. The pro­pos­al tar­get­ed cas­es that are cur­rent­ly under the exclu­sive purview of Democratic St. Louis City Circuit…

Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts has vetoed a bill that would have increased trans­paren­cy in the state’s exe­cu­tion process. LB 238, which passed the state’s uni­cam­er­al leg­is­la­ture on August 13, 2020 by a vote of 27 – 10 with 12 mem­bers present but not vot­ing, would have allowed wit­ness­es to see the exe­cu­tion from the moment the pris­on­er enters the death cham­ber until the pris­on­er is declared dead or the execution is…

In a rul­ing imbued with his­toric sig­nif­i­cance, the North Carolina Supreme Court has for the first time acknowl­edged per­va­sive dis­crim­i­na­tion in the state’s use of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment and vacat­ed a death-row prisoner’s death sen­tence under the since-repealed Racial Justice Act…