Publications & Testimony

NEWS (2/​13/​20): The California Supreme Court has grant­ed a new tri­al to Kenneth Earl Gay, who was sen­tenced to death in 1985 for the mur­der of a Los Angeles police offi­cer. In a unan­i­mous deci­sion on February 13, 2020, the court ruled that Gay’s lawyer had ​“obtained appoint­ment to rep­re­sent Gay through fraud, coun­seled him to make dam­ag­ing con­fes­sions to the pros­e­cu­tion with­out safe­guards to ensure the con­fes­sions would not be used with­out a deal (while deceiv­ing him as to…

As state leg­is­la­tures in Ohio and Washington con­tem­plate the future of their death-penal­ty statutes, major news­pa­pers in each of the states are advocating legislative…

NEWS (2/​12/​20): On February 12, 2020, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals over­turned the death sen­tence imposed on Charles Brownlow, Jr. in Kaufman County in April 2016. The appeals court ruled that Brownlow’s jury had been pre­vent­ed from prop­er­ly eval­u­at­ing his claim of intellectual…

Andre Thomas (pic­tured) is a Texas death-row pris­on­er riv­en with schiz­o­phre­nia so severe that, in sep­a­rate inci­dents, he gouged out both of his eyes and ate one of them. The U.S. Court of Appeals heard oral argu­ment on February 5, 2020, about whether his con­vic­tion and death sen­tence should be over­turned because his lawyers failed to present evi­dence that he was incom­pe­tent to be tried, failed to present mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence of Thomas’ exten­sive history of…

NEWS (2/​11/​20): The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania has stayed the exe­cu­tion of Jordan Clemons, which had been sched­uled for March 13, 2020. As required by a law enact­ed by the Pennsylvania leg­is­la­ture in 1995, Clemons was the sub­ject of a legal­ly pre­ma­ture exe­cu­tion date, even though he had not yet had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to appeal his con­vic­tion and death sen­tence in state or fed­er­al post-con­vic­tion pro­ceed­ings and was enti­tled to pursue those…

Why is the death penal­ty pur­sued and imposed in some cas­es and not in oth­ers that, at first glance, seem facial­ly indis­tin­guish­able? Surveying the aca­d­e­m­ic lit­er­a­ture, Daniel Medwed, the University Distinguished Professor of Law and Criminal Justice at Northeastern University School of Law, points to one of the fac­tors that ​“seeps into charg­ing and sen­tenc­ing deci­sions in mean­ing­ful and dis­turb­ing ways“ — race: first, the race of the vic­tim and then the race of the…

The last three men sched­uled for exe­cu­tion in Georgia said they did not com­mit the killing and that DNA test­ing that was not avail­able at the time of tri­al could prove it. In two of the cas­es, vic­tim fam­i­ly mem­bers sup­port­ed the request for test­ing. Prosecutors opposed the requests, and the courts refused to allow the test­ing. Two of the three men were exe­cut­ed, with doubts still swirling as to their…

Three groups, rep­re­sent­ing pros­e­cu­tors, the Catholic Church, and polit­i­cal con­ser­v­a­tives, have filed briefs in the U.S. Supreme Court sup­port­ing the efforts of Florida death-row pris­on­er James Dailey (pic­tured) to obtain judi­cial review of his inno­cence claim. Dailey filed a peti­tion for cer­tio­rari on January 10, 2020 ask­ing the Supreme Court to hear his case, after the Florida courts refused to con­sid­er evi­dence that anoth­er man had con­fessed to the…