Publications & Testimony

NEWS (9/​17/​20) — Florida: The Florida Supreme Court has denied post-con­vic­­tion relief to Ken Lott, retroac­tive­ly apply­ing its new rule that a death sen­tence imposed under the state’s uncon­sti­tu­tion­al judi­cial fact-find­­ing statute did not vio­late Lott’s right to a jury tri­al because the jury had unan­i­mous­ly found an aggra­vat­ing cir­cum­stance. The court held that Lott’s Sixth Amendment right to a jury tri­al in his…

A study of 40 years of Texas death sen­tences has found that the like­li­hood that a defen­dant accused of a death-eli­gi­ble mur­der will be sen­tenced to death is three times greater if the case involves a white…

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died. The 87-year-old jus­tice, who repeat­ed­ly expressed skep­ti­cism about the death penal­ty but nev­er took the step of say­ing it was inher­ent­ly uncon­sti­tu­tion­al, suc­cumbed to pan­cre­at­ic can­cer on September 18, 2020. Her death imme­di­ate­ly threw the future direc­tion of the…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…