Publications & Testimony

Judicial enforce­ment of con­sti­tu­tion­al rights in Texas death penal­ty cas­es has become increas­ing­ly rare and is vir­tu­al­ly non-exis­­tent in the state’s fed­er­al courts, a new University of Houston Law Center study has found. The study, Reversal Rates in Capital Cases in Texas, 2000 – 2020, pub­lished online on April 27, 2020 in the UCLA Law Review, reports that rever­sal rates in cas­es in which Texas cap­i­tal defen­dants were sen­tenced to death in the first two…

NEWS (5/​7/​20) — Texas: The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has grant­ed a stay of exe­cu­tion to Randall Mays, direct­ing a Henderson County tri­al court to review Mays’ claim that he is inel­i­gi­ble for the death penal­ty because of intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty. The appeals court declined to address claims that Mays’ con­vic­tion and death sen­tence had been taint­ed by racial bias and juror mis­con­duct and that he had been sub­ject to improp­er interrogation by…

Oklahoma will not seek to car­ry out any exe­cu­tions while lit­i­ga­tion con­tin­ues in fed­er­al court on the state’s lethal-injec­­tion pro­to­col, a U.S. fed­er­al dis­trict court judge…

NEWS (5/​7/​20) — Florida: The Florida Supreme Court has upheld the death sen­tence imposed on Leonardo Franqui, deny­ing post-con­vic­­tion chal­lenges to his death sen­tence based upon claims that he is inel­i­gi­ble for the death penal­ty because of intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty and that his death sen­tence was uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly imposed after some mem­bers of his jury…

Pervis Payne (pic­tured) was young, black, and, he says, in the wrong place at the wrong time. The son of a min­is­ter, he is on death row in Tennessee, con­vict­ed of the hor­rif­ic mur­ders of a white woman and her two-year-old daugh­ter and the stab­bing of her three-year-old son in 1987. His case, pro­filed by Steven Hale in The Appeal on April 29, 2020, fea­tures evi­dence of inno­cence, intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty, prosecutorial…

Alleging that the Texas prison sys­tem is​“fail­ing to under­take take basic mea­sures to pro­tect [them] from the risk of dis­ease and death” pre­sent­ed by the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic, pris­on­ers on the state’s death row have filed a class-action motion to join a fed­er­al prison-con­di­­tions law­suit against the Texas Department of Criminal Justice…

In a fed­er­al cap­i­tal case with impli­ca­tions relat­ing to trib­al sov­er­eign­ty, a fed­er­al appeals court has denied a Native-American prisoner’s appeal seek­ing to inves­ti­gate racial bias in his case, while ques­tion­ing the fed­er­al government’s pur­suit of the death…

NEWS (5/​1/​20) — Ohio: By a vote of 6 – 2, the Ohio Parole Board has rec­om­mend that Governor Mike DeWine com­mute the sen­tence of death-row pris­on­er Gregory Lott (pic­tured) to life with­out parole. The deci­sion on clemen­cy is now up to Gov. DeWine, who has twice delayed…

In a case long marred by pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct, the Missouri Supreme Court has denied a stay of exe­cu­tion for Walter Barton (pic­tured), reject­ing his claims of inno­cence and incom­pe­tence to be exe­cut­ed. The court’s rul­ing on April 27, 2020 made no men­tion of Barton’s addi­tion­al request to put off his exe­cu­tion because of pub­lic health dan­gers relat­ing to the coronavirus…

NEWS (5/​1/​20) — California: A split three-judge pan­el of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has upheld the con­vic­tion and death sen­tence of Richard Allen Benson for the sex­u­al molesta­tion of two young girls, mur­der­ing them, their moth­er, and their baby broth­er. The court unan­i­mous­ly agreed that a police officer’s false state­ment dur­ing inter­ro­ga­tion that Benson would not face the death penal­ty did not ren­der his con­fes­sion invalid. In…