Publications & Testimony

Items: 101 — 110


Jul 17, 2024

United States Supreme Court Issues Rare Last-Minute Stay for Ruben Gutierrez

The state of Texas was sched­uled to exe­cute Ruben Gutierrez (pic­tured) on July 16, 2024; how­ev­er, the United States Supreme Court issued a rare, last-minute stay of exe­cu­tion just 20 min­utes before he was sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed by lethal injec­tion. This is the first stay of exe­cu­tion grant­ed by the Supreme Court since it issued a stay for Richard Glossip in 2023. In a peti­tion filed with the Supreme Court, attor­neys for Mr. Gutierrez asked the Court to inter­vene because Texas has denied…

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Jul 16, 2024

Alabama and Texas are Set to Execute Prisoners This Week, Despite Serious Constitutional Questions in their Cases

On Thursday, July 18, 2024, the state of Alabama is sched­uled to exe­cute Keith Gavin (pic­tured left) by lethal injec­tion, despite court find­ings that his tri­al coun­sel was inef­fec­tive. Mr. Gavin was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in 1999 for the shoot­ing death of a deliv­ery dri­ver. A non-unan­i­mous jury vot­ed 10 – 2 in favor of the death penal­ty for Mr. Gavin, and the tri­al court accept­ed the jury’s sen­tenc­ing out­come. During the penal­ty phase of tri­al, Mr. Gavin’s defense team did not present…

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Jul 12, 2024

Articles of Interest: Op-ed says new Tennessee law that expands the death penalty to child rape creates more problems than it solves.”

A July 7, 2024 op-ed in the Tennessean argues that the recent enac­tion of SB 1834, which makes the rape of a child pun­ish­able by death, does more harm than good.” Sarah McGee (pic­tured), coor­di­na­tor for Tennesseans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, explains that dur­ing her work as a vic­tim-wit­ness coor­di­na­tor for Davidson County District Attorney’s Office, pro­ba­tion offi­cer, and assis­tant pub­lic defend­er, she learned that when child ser­vice providers and experts, the people…

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Jul 11, 2024

NPR Investigation Reveals Supplier of Texas Execution Drugs Has Multiple Drug Enforcement Agency Violations; Questions Remain Regarding Drug Acquisition in Other States

A July 10, 2024, National Public Radio (NPR) inves­ti­ga­tion has revealed that Rite Away, a small chain of phar­ma­cies locat­ed around San Antonio and Austin, Texas, com­pound­ed and pro­vid­ed pen­to­bar­bi­tal for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) between 2019 and late 2023 to car­ry out lethal injec­tion exe­cu­tions. During the same time peri­od, records at the Texas Board of Pharmacy and fed­er­al Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) indi­cate the phar­ma­cy was cit­ed for mul­ti­ple safety and…

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Five vials of clear liquid, varying sizes. One is on its side with a syringe in it.

Jul 10, 2024

Worldwide Wednesday International Roundup: China, Democratic Republic of the Congo, India, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Tanzania

On June 21, 2024, China announced that courts, pros­e­cu­tors, pub­lic, and state bod­ies should use the death penal­ty against Taiwan sep­a­ratists. The state-run Xinhua news agency report­ed that the new guide­lines rec­om­mend severe­ly punish[ing] Taiwan inde­pen­dence diehards for split­ting the coun­try and incit­ing seces­sion crimes in accor­dance with the law, and res­olute­ly defend nation­al sov­er­eign­ty, uni­ty and ter­ri­to­r­i­al integri­ty.” Critics say that the vague­ness of the legal lan­guage in the new…

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Jul 08, 2024

Significant Developments in Cases of Innocent Prisoners on Death Row

On Wednesday, July 3rd, the 200th death row exon­er­a­tion was announced. But an unknown num­ber of pris­on­ers with com­pelling inno­cence claims remain on death row, unable to secure relief either because they lack access to com­pe­tent legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion for their appeals, are barred from access­ing the courts because of pro­ce­dur­al legal bar­ri­ers, or due to the incal­ci­trance of elect­ed offi­cials. For some of these pris­on­ers, exe­cu­tion dates have been set. Significant devel­op­ments have occurred…

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Jul 03, 2024

The 200th Exoneration Underscores Critical Flaws in the U.S. Criminal Legal System; Other Innocent Prisoners Remain on Death Row

Since the U.S. Supreme Court’s land­mark rul­ing in Furman v. Georgia (1972), 200 death-sen­tenced men and women across 30 states have been exon­er­at­ed. Analysis from the Death Penalty Information Center reveals these indi­vid­u­als have col­lec­tive­ly spent 2,621 years in harsh prison con­di­tions for crimes they did not com­mit. On aver­age, death row exonerees spent 13 years under the sen­tence of death before their exon­er­a­tions, with some indi­vid­u­als spend­ing more than 40 years fight­ing to prove…

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Jul 02, 2024

Federal Execution-Drug Supplier Says It Will No Longer Produce Pentobarbital for Executions

Connecticut-based com­pa­ny Absolute Standards, which was iden­ti­fied as the source of lethal injec­tion drugs used in 13 fed­er­al exe­cu­tions in 2020 and 2021, has said it will no longer pro­duce the drug used in exe­cu­tions — pen­to­bar­bi­tal. In a let­ter to two Connecticut law­mak­ers, John Criscio, pres­i­dent of Absolute Standards, said the com­pa­ny ceased pro­duc­ing pen­to­bar­bi­tal in December 2020, and has no inten­tion to resume any pro­duc­tion or sale of pen­to­bar­bi­tal.” Mr. Criscio’s let­ter explains that…

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