Publications & Testimony

Pennsylvania death-row exoneree Christopher Williams (pictured) was released from prison on February 9, 2021, after being exonerated in a second murder case. The second wrongful murder conviction had kept Williams incarcerated after he was cleared of the murder for which he was wrongfully condemned to die. Williams was exonerated with the assistance of the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Conviction Integrity Unit. Unit chief Patricia Cummings admitted that “[t]here was some cynicism in me as…

Former Florida public defender Matt Shirk (pictured), who was defeated for re-election after scandals related to personal misconduct and undermining criminal defense services in one the nation’s most prolific death sentencing counties, faces suspension of his law license after pleading guilty to multiple ethics violations during his time in office. If the plea is approved by the Florida Supreme Court, Shirk will be suspended from practice for six months, and must pay for disciplinary costs and…

Four hours after Alabama was scheduled to execute death-row prisoner Willie B. Smith III on February 11, 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court let stand a federal appeals court injunction barring the execution from going forward unless the state permitted Smith’s pastor to be present to provide him religious comfort in the execution chamber. Alabama then announced that it was calling off the execution. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit had issued the preliminary injunction late in the…

A coalition of 82 civil rights and advocacy organizations have called on President Joe Biden to honor his campaign promise of “ensuring equality, equity, and justice in our criminal legal system” by taking executive action to end federal executions. The groups, led by The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, asked Biden to commute the sentences of everyone on federal death row, dismantle the federal death chamber, rescind the federal execution protocol and other guidelines issued by…

The Harris County District Attorney’s office has asked the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to overturn the death sentence imposed on Raymond Riles (pictured), the nation’s longest-serving death-row prisoner. Riles, who has a significant history of mental illness that prosecutors and defense lawyers alike have long agreed make him incompetent to be executed, was convicted and sentenced to death 45 years ago, on February 4, 1976. When Charles Foster, who was sentenced to death in Florida in…

NEWS (2/4/21) — Florida: The Florida Supreme Court has issued two opinions denying relief to death-row prisoners. In Randolph v. State, the court denied Richard Barry Randolph’s claim that his judge-imposed death sentence after a non-unanimous jury recommendation for death violated the constitutional requirement that a jury unanimously find all the elements of an offense beyond a reasonable doubt. The court rejected Randolph’s argument that whether aggravating circumstances outweigh mitigating…

With two historic votes, the Virginia General Assembly has moved the commonwealth to the cusp of becoming the first Southern state to abolish capital punishment, approving separate bills that would end the state’s death penalty and resentence the two men on death row to life without parole. On February 3, 2021, the Virginia State Senate voted along party lines, 21 – 17, in favor of abolishing capital punishment. Two days later, three Republicans joined all but one Democrat in the Virginia House…

Lawyers for the daughter of a man executed by Tennessee have asked a state appeals court to permit DNA testing that could prove his innocence. In a virtual hearing before the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals on February 3, 2021 (see picture), former U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement urged the court to order DNA testing that, he argued, could exonerate Sedley Alley. Alley, who was executed in 2006, had been convicted of rape and murder in the death of 19-year-old Marine Lance Cpl. Suzanne…

The Virginia Senate moved the commonwealth one step closer to becoming the first Southern state to abolish capital punishment, voting 21 – 17 on February 3, 2021 to approve a bill that would end the state’s death penalty and resentence the two men on death row to life without parole. The party-line vote clears a major hurdle in the commonwealth’s historic effort at abolition. The bill could see a vote in the House of Delegates as soon as February 5, after a companion measure passed the House…

The Federal Bureau of Prisons spent nearly $4.7 million dollars on the first five executions carried out by the Trump administration in July and August 2020, according to redacted government financial records recently obtained by the ACLU. The government’s January 2021 disclosures in response to an ACLU Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, detailed the extraordinarily high price tag absorbed by taxpayers as a result of the administration’s choice to conduct executions during the worst global…