Publications & Testimony

Atlanta is poised to become the lat­est in a grow­ing num­ber of U.S. cities in which pros­e­cu­tors have pledged not to seek the death penal­ty or to use it…

State appeal courts in Nevada and Pennsylvania have barred the retri­al of two for­mer death-row pris­on­ers as a result of pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct, paving the way for…

A Florida judge has denied death-row pris­on­er James Dailey​’s motion for a new tri­al on May 29, 2020, rul­ing that no new admis­si­ble evi­dence sup­port­ed Dailey’s claim of inno­cence. Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge Pat Siracusa’s deci­sion came just one day after jour­nal­ist Pamela Colloff won a National Magazine Award for her inves­ti­ga­tion of a noto­ri­ous jail­house infor­mant who pro­vid­ed key testimony…

A fed­er­al dis­trict court has grant­ed a new tri­al to Pennsylvania death-row pris­on­er Samuel Randolph (pic­tured), hold­ing that the tri­al court uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly denied Randolph the right to be rep­re­sent­ed by coun­sel of choice, forc­ing him to go to tri­al with an unpre­pared court-appoint­ed lawyer with whom he had an​“absolute[,] com­plete breakdown of…

A fed­er­al dis­trict court judge has over­turned the con­vic­tion and death sen­tence of Texas death-row pris­on­er Ronald Prible, find­ing that celebri­ty​“true crime” host Kelly Siegler (pic­tured) had engaged in exten­sive mis­con­duct as a Harris County homi­cide pros­e­cu­tor in Prible’s cap­i­tal tri­al in 2002. U.S. District Judge Keith Ellison grant­ed relief on six sep­a­rate claims that Siegler hid excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence from the defense,…

For the third time in 2020, the Florida Supreme Court has reduced the con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­tec­tions afford­ed to death-row pris­on­ers. In a May 21 deci­sion in Phillips v. State, the court over­turned its own case prece­dent and lim­it­ed enforce­ment of a U.S. Supreme Court case that bars exe­cu­tion of intellectually…

Just 20% of Houstonians — a record low — now sup­port the death penal­ty over life-sen­­tenc­ing alter­na­tives, a new Rice University sur­vey has found. The 2020 Houston Area Survey by the Kinder Institute for Urban Research, released on May 4, 2020, found that death-penal­­ty sup­port has declined by more than half since the turn of the 21^st cen­tu­ry in the city of 2.3…

NEWS (5/​29/​2020) — Georgia: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit has affirmed a dis­trict court rul­ing deny­ing death-row pris­on­er Leon Tollette​’s habeas cor­pus chal­lenge to his con­vic­tion and death sen­tence. Tollette had argued that his death sen­tence should be over­turned because of mul­ti­ple mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tions and improp­er com­ments the pros­e­cu­tor made dur­ing the penal­­ty-phase clos­ing argu­ment and defense coun­sel’s failure to…

Johnny Lee Gates (pic­tured) is free, 43 years after being sen­tenced to death in Georgia for a mur­der he has stead­fast­ly maintained he…

The first new death sen­tence and first exe­cu­tion since pub­lic health con­cerns aris­ing from the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic shut­tered most court pro­ceed­ings across the coun­try have high­light­ed sev­er­al of the gravest con­cerns about the death penal­ty in the…