Publications & Testimony

More than forty years after he was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death by an all-white Columbus, Georgia jury for the rape and mur­der of a 19-year-old white woman, Johnny Lee Gates (pic­tured) will be get­ting a new tri­al. On March 13, 2020, the Georgia Supreme Court unan­i­mous­ly held that DNA con­tained on phys­i­cal evi­dence that police and pros­e­cu­tors had with­held for decades raised ​“sig­nif­i­cant doubt” as to Gates’…

Capital sen­tenc­ing schemes that per­mit judges to impose a death sen­tence despite the votes of one or more jurors for life cre­ate a height­ened risk that an inno­cent per­son will be wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death, accord­ing to a new Death Penalty Information Center analy­sis of death-row exoneration…

NEWS (3/​13/​20): The North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission vot­ed 5 – 3 on March 13, 2020 to empan­el a three-judge review com­mit­tee to deter­mine whether four men con­vict­ed as teens should be exon­er­at­ed of the mur­der of NBA star Chris Paul’s grand­fa­ther, Nathaniel Jones. A fifth teen con­vict­ed in the mur­der died before he could sub­mit his case for review by the…

NEWS (3/​12/​20): The Arkansas Supreme Court ruled on March 12, 2020 that death-row pris­on­er Jerry Lard, who lawyers say is intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled, may waive his post-conviction…

NEWS (3/​12/​20): The Florida Supreme Court on March 12, 2020 denied death-row pris­on­er Hector Sanchez-Torres​’s post-con­vic­tion chal­lenge to his con­vic­tion and death sen­tence for a 2008 armed rob­bery and mur­der. In an unsigned opin­ion, the court ruled that Sanchez-Torres’s coun­sel had not been inef­fec­tive in advis­ing him to plead guilty to the charges and to waive a sen­tenc­ing jury based on counsel’s belief that ​“a Clay County jury would…

NEWS (3/​12/​20): Citing a 14-year delay by fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors in bring­ing the case to tri­al, a fed­er­al dis­trict court in Texas has dis­missed a fed­er­al cap­i­tal mur­der indict­ment against a Salvadoran man charged with killing two Honduran…

The num­ber of peo­ple on death row across the United States or fac­ing poten­tial cap­i­tal resen­tenc­ings declined by near­ly 20% in the 2010s, accord­ing to a Death Penalty Information Center analy­sis of data from the lat­est quar­ter­ly death-row cen­sus by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational…

Former Florida death-row pris­on­er Timothy Hurst (pic­tured), whose case led the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down Florida’s death-penal­ty statute in 2016 and spurred the elim­i­na­tion of non-unan­i­mous jury ver­dicts for death in Florida and Delaware, has been resen­tenced to life with­out parole. Hurst was offi­cial­ly removed from Florida’s death row after his cap­i­tal resen­tenc­ing jury did not reach a unan­i­mous sen­tenc­ing rec­om­men­da­tion on March 5,…

NEWS (3/​11/​20): The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) has reject­ed the rec­om­men­da­tion of an El Paso County tri­al court that death-row pris­on­er Rigoberto Avila should be grant­ed a new tri­al as a result of the prosecution’s reliance on false and out­dat­ed scientific…