Publications & Testimony

Texas exe­cut­ed Mark Soliz (pic­tured) on September 10, 2019, after a fed­er­al appeals court denied him a stay and dis­missed his claim that his life­long men­tal impair­ments result­ing from fetal alco­hol syn­drome should exempt him from exe­cu­tion. Soliz had sought a stay and to be resen­tenced to life with­out parole, argu­ing that his mother’s alco­hol con­sump­tion dur­ing her preg­nan­cy impaired his intel­lec­tu­al devel­op­ment in a man­ner that was the “ ​‘func­tion­al…

A coali­tion of nation­al and local Jewish orga­ni­za­tions and lawyers have asked the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to stop the sched­uled October 10, 2019 exe­cu­tion of a Jewish death-row pris­on­er to review his claim that the judge before whom he was tried was racist and anti-Semitic. Randy Halprin (pic­tured) was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in a tri­al presided over by Dallas County Judge Vickers Cunningham, who referred to Halprin as a…

NEWS — September 10: Texas’ exe­cu­tion of Mark Soliz was the 1505^th exe­cu­tion in the U.S. since the rein­state­ment of the death penal­ty in the 1970s. Texas has car­ried out 37.5% of all exe­cu­tions dur­ing that peri­od. It was the 15^th exe­cu­tion in the U.S. in 2019, and the 6^th in Texas. Nine of the 17 pend­ing exe­cu­tions sched­uled in the U.S. in the rest of 2019 are in…

Thirty-three years after a tri­al a fed­er­al appeals court described as ​“a mix­ture of dis­turb­ing pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct and woe­ful­ly inad­e­quate assis­tance of coun­sel,” a Las Vegas tri­al court freed Paul Browning (pic­tured) from Nevada​’s death row. On August 21, 2019, Clark County District Judge Douglas Herndon ­— who in March had dis­missed mur­der and relat­ed charges against Browning ­— ordered state cor­rec­tions offi­cials to…

Thirty-two years after he was sen­tenced to death in a tri­al taint­ed by pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct, Tennessee death-row pris­on­er Abu-Ali Abdur’Rahman (pic­tured) has been resen­tenced to life in prison. On August 30, 2019, Davidson County Criminal Court Judge Monte Watkins approved a plea deal reached between Abdur’Rahman and Nashville pros­e­cu­tors, vacat­ed Abdur’Rahman’s death sen­tence, and in its place imposed three con­sec­u­tive life sentences.

Texas exe­cut­ed death-row pris­on­er Billy Jack Crutsinger on September 4, 2019, despite, his cur­rent lawyers say, hav­ing pro­vid­ed him with an incom­pe­tent appeals lawyer who repeat­ed­ly filed friv­o­lous claims and cut and past­ed con­tra­dic­to­ry claims and argu­ments from pri­or clients’ court plead­ings. Crutsinger had asked the U.S. Supreme Court to halt his exe­cu­tion to review whether the tri­al court’s appoint­ment of a lawyer ​“who was not com­pe­tent to rep­re­sent the…

The North Carolina Supreme Court (mem­bers pic­tured) heard argu­ments on August 26 and 27, 2019 on whether the state may retroac­tive­ly apply the leg­isla­tive repeal of its Racial Justice Act to death-row pris­on­ers who had over­turned their death sen­tences or filed claims under the act before it was…

NEWS — September 5: The Florida Supreme Court has upheld the con­vic­tion and death sen­tence imposed on Shawn Rogers for a 2012 prison mur­der. Rogers was per­mit­ted to waive his right to coun­sel and rep­re­sent him­self at tri­al. After the jury unan­i­mous­ly rec­om­mend­ed a death sen­tence, coun­sel was appoint­ed to rep­re­sent Rogers — over his objec­tion — in a sub­se­quent hear­ing in which the court sen­tenced him to death. The appeals court affirmed the judge’s deter­mi­na­tion that the…

In a year in which few states have car­ried out any exe­cu­tions, the aggres­sive exe­cu­tion prac­tices of a sin­gle state — Texas — stand in sharp con­trast. The Lone Star State has sched­uled thir­teen exe­cu­tions for the last five months of 2019, more than the rest of the coun­try com­bined. And a DPIC review of the cir­cum­stances in which the war­rants were issued rais­es trou­bling ques­tions as to whether the state is exe­cut­ing the most moral­ly cul­pa­ble indi­vid­u­als for the worst of the worst crimes or…

Thirty-sev­en years after his wrong­ful cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tion and con­vic­tion for a mur­der he did not com­mit, a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge has set Samuel Bonner free. Citing ​“gross pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct” that he said ​“shocks the con­science,” Judge Daniel J. Lowenthal(pic­tured) on July 11, 2019 ordered Bonner released from California state…