Publications & Testimony

On January 30, a fed­er­al judge ruled that Luigi Mangione can­not face the death penal­ty in his upcom­ing tri­al for the mur­der of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. She dis­missed two counts from his fed­er­al indict­ment, one of which car­ried the death penal­ty as a poten­tial sen­tence. Described by The New York Times as​“a sig­nif­i­cant blow to the Trump administration’s efforts to revive the use of the death penal­ty in fed­er­al cas­es,” this deci­sion invalidates a…

A bipar­ti­san group of 19 Republicans and 28 Democrats nar­row­ly defeat­ed a mea­sure to add the fir­ing squad as an exe­cu­tion method in an Indiana House floor vote on January 28, 2026. HB 1119 received 48 in favor and 47 against, falling three votes short of pas­sage, with two leg­is­la­tors not vot­ing and three absent. Although the mea­sure could have been brought for a sec­ond vote before February 2, it was not. A sim­i­lar Senate bill (SB 11) to add the fir­ing squad stalled in…

Two women inti­mate­ly con­nect­ed to a 1991 mur­der case in Alabama have pub­licly opposed the intend­ed exe­cu­tion of Charles​“Sonny” Burton, a man both the state and his attor­neys acknowl­edge did not fire the fatal shot. Priscilla Townsend, who served on the jury that sen­tenced Mr. Burton to death, and Tori Battle, whose father Doug Battle was killed dur­ing the rob­bery in ques­tion, have each writ­ten op-eds urg­ing Governor Kay Ivey to grant clemen­cy. On January 22, 2026, the…

On January 20, 2026, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF) filed an ami­cus brief in the U.S. Supreme Court in sup­port of Amos Wells, a Black man in Texas who was sen­tenced to death in 2016 after a tri­al marked by racial bias and harm­ful stereo­types. The brief urges the Court to grant cer­tio­rari to address the con­tin­u­ing harm caused by the false stereo­type that Black men are inher­ent­ly vio­lent. Central to Mr. Wells’ death sen­tence at tri­al was tes­ti­mo­ny about *monoamine oxidase…

On January 16, 2026, Chancellor I’Aesha L. Myles grant­ed a tem­po­rary injunc­tion order­ing the Tennessee Department of Corrections (TDOC) to expand access to exe­cu­tions for pub­lic and media wit­ness­es. The order was in response to a suit filed by a media coali­tion that includes the Associated Press, Gannett Co., Inc., Nashville Public Media, Inc., Nashville Public Radio, Scripps Media, Inc., Six Rivers Media, LLC, and TEGNA Inc.. The TDOC has faced scruti­ny in recent years for its…

September 30, 1953 was an event­ful night for 19-year-old Tommy Lee Walker. After catch­ing a ride home from work at 6 p.m. — he didn’t have a car — he spent a few hours with friends in Exall Park near his home in Dallas. He then vis­it­ed his girl­friend Mary Louise Smith, who was nine months preg­nant. It seemed like the baby would come any minute, and sure enough, Mary Louise went into labor that night. Their son Ted was born in the ear­ly hours of October 1. Yet despite the many…