Publications & Testimony

NEWS (2/​17/​20): A Kentucky pub­lic defend­er has been cleared of charges that she tam­pered with evi­dence in a cap­i­tal case. On February 17, 2020, a Kentucky grand jury declined to indict Angela Elleman on a felony charge aris­ing out of alle­ga­tions that she and a defense inves­ti­ga­tor had dug up shell cas­ings linked to a mur­der case and kept them in a safe for more than six years. Elleman rep­re­sents Anthony Hogan,…

After a five-year hia­tus, Oklahoma has announced plans to resume exe­cu­tions by return­ing to the same com­bi­na­tion of lethal-injec­­tion drugs that were part of its exe­cu­tion pro­to­col dur­ing a series of botched executions in…

Rocky Myers (pic­tured) may be inno­cent and intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled, and his jury vot­ed to sen­tence him to life. So why is he fac­ing execution in…

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…

NEWS (2/​13/​20): The Florida Supreme Court issued opin­ions on February 13, 2020 deny­ing relief to pris­on­ers in three death…

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’…

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…

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…