Publications & Testimony

NEWS (3/​20/​20): Georgia — Crusading civ­il rights and death-penal­­ty defense lawyer Millard Farmer (pic­tured, left, in 1980), age 85, has died. Farmer, a relent­less fight­er against racism and dis­crim­i­na­tion, devel­oped a con­tro­ver­sial style of lit­i­ga­tion he called​“con­flic­tion­eer­ing,” in which he took direct aim at judges, pros­e­cu­tors, and law enforce­ment offi­cials whose big­otry he believed was pro­mot­ing or pro­tect­ing unjust appli­ca­tion of the…

The Ohio Supreme Court has grant­ed a new tri­al to a Cincinnati death-row pris­on­er whose lawyer’s inac­tion per­mit­ted a racial­ly biased juror to serve in his case. In a 5 – 2 opin­ion issued February 27, 2020, the court ruled that defense coun­sel for Glen Bates (pic­tured) had been inef­fec­tive for fail­ing to ques­tion a juror about her racial bias, chal­lenge her for cause, or exer­cise one of his remain­ing dis­cre­tionary strikes to pre­vent her from serving in…

NEWS (3/​19/​20): Texas — The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has for a sec­ond time delayed an impend­ing exe­cu­tion because of the coro­n­avirus health cri­sis. On March 19, the court issued a 60-day stay of exe­cu­tion to Tracy Beatty, whom the state had sched­uled for execution…

NEWS (3/​21/​20): Arkansas — Arkansas cap­i­tal defen­dant Mauricio Torres will get a third tri­al in the child-abuse mur­der of his six-year-old son after a Benton County tri­al judge declared a mis­tri­al dur­ing the penal­­ty-phase of his sec­ond tri­al and vacated the…

NEWS (3/​19/​20): Florida — The Florida Supreme Court has denied new sen­tenc­ing hear­ings to two more death-row pris­on­ers who were sen­tenced to death after non-unan­i­­mous sen­tenc­ing rec­om­men­da­tions by their juries. Relying on the court’s January 23, 2020 deci­sion in State v. Poole that aban­doned its require­ment of unan­i­mous sen­tenc­ing rec­om­men­da­tions, the court upheld death sen­tences imposed on Grover Reed and Lucious…

Virginia​’s death row shrank to just two pris­on­ers on March 12 as recent­ly elect­ed Fairfax County, Virginia Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve T. Descano agreed to a deal to resen­tence for­mer death-row pris­on­er Mark Lawlor (pic­tured) to life with­out parole. Lawlor was sen­tenced to death in 2011 for the mur­der of Genevieve Orange. No one has been sen­tenced to death in…

Responding to esca­lat­ing health con­cerns caused by the COVID-19 coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) has tem­porar­i­ly halt­ed the exe­cu­tion of John Hummel. In an order issued on March 16, 2020, the TCCA stayed Hummel’s exe­cu­tion, which had been sched­uled for March 18, for 60 days, say­ing the delay was nec­es­sary​“in light of the cur­rent health cri­sis and the enor­mous resources need­ed to address…

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…

Colorado — The Colorado leg­is­la­ture on March 13 trans­mit­ted to the gov­er­nor SB 20 – 100, which would repeal the state’s death penal­ty. Governor Jared Polis now has ten days in which to sign or veto the bill or allow it to become law without…

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…