Publications & Testimony

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals stayed the exe­cu­tion of Rodney Reed (pic­tured) on November 15, 2019, direct­ing the Bastrop County dis­trict court to review Reed’s claims that pros­e­cu­tors sup­pressed excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence and pre­sent­ed false tes­ti­mo­ny and that he is actu­al­ly inno­cent. The court’s action cul­mi­nat­ed a whirl­wind of activ­i­ty on the Friday pre­ced­ing Reed’s sched­uled November 20 exe­cu­tion. Earlier in the after­noon, the Texas Board of Pardons and…

Reform pros­e­cu­tors made fur­ther inroads into the admin­is­tra­tion of American law enforce­ment, sweep­ing coun­ty elec­tions in Northern Virginia and gain­ing con­trol of prosecutor’s offices in Pennsylvania and California. Progressive pros­e­cu­tors rode a blue wave of sub­ur­ban votes on November 5, 2019 that solid­i­fied Democratic con­trol of every state leg­isla­tive and pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al seat in the Northern Virginia coun­ties bor­der­ing the nation’s cap­i­tal and wrest­ed con­trol of coun­ty gov­ern­ment from one of…

Hundreds of for­mer state and fed­er­al judges, pros­e­cu­tors, law enforce­ment and cor­rec­tions offi­cials, and fam­i­ly mem­bers of homi­cide vic­tims have signed on to a series of let­ters urg­ing the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment to halt the five fed­er­al exe­cu­tions sched­uled for December 2019 and January 2020. In four sep­a­rate let­ters addressed to President Donald Trump and Attorney General William Barr, 175 fam­i­ly mem­bers of mur­der vic­tims, 65 for­mer state and fed­er­al judges, 59 cur­rent and for­mer state and…

At least 166 wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed death-row pris­on­ers have been exon­er­at­ed since the death penal­ty was rein­sti­tut­ed in the United States in 1973. That num­ber, how­ev­er, may only scratch the sur­face in assess­ing the degree to which inno­cent men and women are being sent to U.S. death…

A fed­er­al dis­trict court has grant­ed a stay of exe­cu­tion to a Buddhist death-row pris­on­er in Texas over alle­ga­tions that the state is dis­crim­i­na­to­ri­ly deny­ing him access to reli­gious ser­vices that would be avail­able to Christian pris­on­ers on the day of their exe­cu­tion. On November 7, 2019, the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas stayed the November 13 exe­cu­tion of Patrick Murphy (pic­tured), mark­ing the sec­ond time in 2019 that his…

On March 16, 2017, say­ing that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment is ​“not in the best inter­ests of this com­mu­ni­ty or in the best inter­ests of jus­tice,” Orange/​Osceola County (FL) state pros­e­cu­tor Aramis Ayala announced that her office would not pur­sue the death penal­ty in any case. That deci­sion, announced in con­nec­tion with the pros­e­cu­tion of a man charged with killing his ex-girl­friend, her unborn child, and a police offi­cer respond­ing to the crime, ignit­ed a political…

Texas exe­cut­ed Justen Hall (pic­tured) on November 6, 2019 in the sec­ond Texas case of the year to present sig­nif­i­cant ques­tions as to a prisoner’s com­pe­ten­cy to be…

After being reversed twice by the United States Supreme Court, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) has resen­tenced intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled death-row pris­on­er Bobby James Moore to life in prison. In a three-page deci­sion issued on November 6, 2019, 39 years after Moore was sen­tenced to death in Houston for a 1980 mur­der dur­ing a super­mar­ket rob­bery, the CCA con­ced­ed that the U.S. Supreme Court has deter­mined that ​“Moore … is a per­son with intellectual…