Publications & Testimony

In his new book, Let the Lord Sort Them: The Rise and Fall of the Death Penalty, journalist Maurice Chammah presages the death of America’s capital punishment system. Chammah expertly weaves together systemic issues with individual, humanizing case details to illustrate the efforts of lawyers, organizations, and activists who are challenging the foundations of the system with the goal of abolishing the death penalty. The New York Times called it “a case study that speaks more broadly to our…

Inadequate testing, resistance to contact tracing, and poor social distancing practices likely made the thirteen federal executions in 2020 – 2021 COVID-19 superspreader events, the Associated Press has concluded. In the ten days after the December 10, 2020 execution of Brandon Bernard, 70% of prisoners on federal death row and hundreds of others incarcerated in the Terre Haute Correctional Complex where the executions took place tested positive for COVID-19. At least a dozen others who…

NEWS (2/11/21) — Alabama: In a splintered vote with three conservative justices noting their dissents, the U.S. Supreme Court denied the Alabama Attorney General’s application to vacate a federal appeals court injunction that had halted that night’s scheduled execution of Willie B. Smith III unless the state permitted his pastor to be present in the death chamber to provide religious comfort during his execution. In a second night-of-execution order, the Court lifted a stay of execution based…

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…