Publications & Testimony

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has affirmed Dylann Roof’s federal-court convictions and death sentences for the racially motivated murders of nine parishioners in an historic Charleston, South Carolina African-American church in 2017. In a 149-page decision issued on August 25, 2021 by a special panel of judges assembled from outside the circuit, the federal appeals court unanimously rejected nineteen issues raised by Roof’s appellate lawyers. Those issues include matters…

In the 1970s, the United States Supreme Court famously declared that “death is different” from all other punishments and, as such, required the provision of heightened procedural safeguards to ensure that its application was not cruel or unusual. But in a new article, Death Penalty Exceptionalism and Administrative Law, University of Richmond law professor and capital punishment scholar Corinna B. Lain (pictured) argues that in the context of administrative law, the doctrine has been “turn[ed]…

In a confusing about-face that has angered human rights activists, the Malawian Supreme Court of Appeal has retreated from a prior decision of the court that had appeared to have abolished the African nation’s death penalty. On August 18, 2021, seven justices of the high court issued a “perfected” judgment in the case of Khoviwa v. The Republic declaring that the original opinion, authored by since-retired Justice of Appeal Dunstain Mwaungulu (pictured) and read from the bench in his absence on…

A Nevada death-row prisoner has asked for a clemency hearing to present new evidence of significant brain damage and post-traumatic stress disorder caused by military service and childhood trauma. On August 10, 2021, lawyers for Zane Floyd (pictured, right) filed an application for clemency with the Nevada Board of Pardons requesting that Floyd’s life be spared. “Clemency is an act of mercy,” said Brad Levenson, Floyd’s attorney. “If a death case does not qualify for consideration, what does?”

1990s amendments to federal law that severely restricted federal judicial review of state convictions are enabling states to commit miscarriages of justice that risk the lives and freedom of innocent people across the country, writes Washington Post columnist Radley Balko (pictured). In an opinion column published August 9, 2021, Balko says that proponents of the amendments to the federal habeas corpus law justified the limitations on federal court enforcement of constitutional rights by…

As China awaited a decision on whether Canada would extradite a top Chinese businesswoman to the U.S. on criminal charges, a Chinese court upheld a controversial death sentence imposed on a Canadian man, further escalating tensions between the two nations. On August 10, 2021, a Chinese court denied the appeal of Robert Schellenberg, a Canadian national who was sentenced to death in China one month after Canadian officials arrested Meng Wanzhou, Chief Financial Officer at Chinese technology…

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit has upheld a federal district court ruling that Arkansas death-row prisoner Alvin Jackson is ineligible for the death penalty because of intellectual disability. On August 13, 2021, a divided 2 – 1 panel of the appeals court held that, applying current diagnostic criteria, Jackson’s significantly subaverage intellectual functioning and lifelong substantial impairments in day-to-day functioning established that he has intellectual disability. The…

A coalition of advocates for victims of domestic and gender-based violence, former prosecutors, legal scholars, and innocence organizations have filed briefs in the U.S. Supreme Court in support of a Texas woman who was sentenced to death for what forensic evidence suggests may have been an accidental fall that killed her two-year-old daughter. Melissa Elizabeth Lucio (pictured) is asking the Court to reverse her conviction for the death of her daughter, Mariah, arguing that she was denied the…

NBC’s true crime series, Dateline, featured an episode on August 13, 2021 on the wrongful conviction and eventual exoneration of former Philadelphia death-row prisoner Walter Ogrod (pictured). The episode, entitled “The Investigation,” is part of an NBC News series called “Justice for All” that reports on wrongful convictions and the U.S. criminal legal system. For the report, NBC News anchor Lester Holt interviewed Ogrod, the mother and stepfather of 4‑year-old victim Barbara Jean Horn…

An Oklahoma federal judge has ordered a trial in a suit filed by the state’s death-row prisoners challenging the constitutionality of Oklahoma’s three-drug lethal-injection process. Judge Stephen Friot of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma ruled on August 11, 2021 that the suit, which alleges that Oklahoma’s execution protocol violates the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment, may proceed to trial. Judge Friot denied several other claims, including…