Publications & Testimony

A for­mer high-rank­ing fed­er­al cor­rec­tions offi­cial has warned that the fed­er­al government’s plan to exe­cute five pris­on­ers over a five-week peri­od in December and January risks seri­ous­ly trau­ma­tiz­ing cor­rec­tion­al work­ers. Allen Ault (pic­tured) is a for­mer chief of the Justice Department’s National Institute of Corrections who also served as cor­rec­tions com­mis­sion­er in Georgia, Mississippi, and Colorado, and as chair­man of the Florida Department of Corrections. In a July 31, 2019 op-ed in…

Calling the state’s death penal­ty ​“dys­func­tion­al,” ​“cost­ly,” and ​“immoral,” Oregon Governor Kate Brown (pic­tured, left, at sign­ing cer­e­mo­ny) on August 1, 2019 signed a bill sig­nif­i­cant­ly lim­it­ing the crimes for which cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment can be imposed in the state. The new law amends Oregon’s def­i­n­i­tion of death-eli­gi­ble ​“aggra­vat­ed mur­der,” reduc­ing the cat­e­gories of mur­der pun­ish­able by death from 19 to four. The new law restricts the death penal­ty to cases…

Ohio can­not obtain drugs to car­ry out exe­cu­tions with­out putting pub­lic health at risk, Governor Mike DeWine (pic­tured) announced on July 31, 2019. DeWine told reporters that phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal man­u­fac­tur­ers are unwill­ing to sell the state drugs for exe­cu­tions and have threat­ened to stop sell­ing med­i­cines to any state agency if they sus­pect the drugs might be divert­ed from ther­a­peu­tic use to use in exe­cu­tions. A sales embar­go could mean that the state would not be able to obtain med­i­cines for…

Citing tri­al court inter­fer­ence in her right to present a defense, a fed­er­al appeals court has over­turned the con­vic­tion of a Texas moth­er who was sen­tenced to death on charges that she had mur­dered her two-year-old daugh­ter. In an unpub­lished, unsigned opin­ion issued on July 29, 2019, a unan­i­mous three-judge pan­el of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit said that tri­al court rul­ings that blocked Melissa Elizabeth Lucio (pic­tured) from call­ing an expert wit­ness to…

The announce­ment by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) that it intends to resume fed­er­al exe­cu­tions after a 16-year hia­tus has sparked com­men­tary from across the polit­i­cal spec­trum and embold­ened the Arizona Attorney General to seek a resump­tion of exe­cu­tions in that state. Responses from con­ser­v­a­tive pun­dits demon­strat­ed the increas­ing bipar­ti­san skep­ti­cism towards the death penal­ty. Catholic bish­ops reassert­ed the Church’s now unequiv­o­cal oppo­si­tion to cap­i­tal punishment.

A for­mer Pennsylvania death-row prison super­in­ten­dent says work­ing on death row makes cor­rec­tions per­son­nel feel ​“less human” and ​“can be pro­found­ly dam­ag­ing” psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly. Cynthia Link (pic­tured) served as the Superintendent of Pennsylvania’s State Correctional Institution at Graterford from 2015 to 2018, dur­ing a peri­od in which the prison housed more than 20 of the Commonwealth’s death row pris­on­ers. In a July 16, 2019 op-ed for…

NEWS: July 30—The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has upheld a fed­er­al dis­trict court rul­ing per­mit­ting a civ­il law­suit by North Carolina death-row exonerees Henry McCollum and Leon Brown to pro­ceed to tri­al. McCollum and Brown, two intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled broth­ers who were wrong­ly con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death for the rape and mur­der of a young girl, allege that police coerced false con­fes­sions from them and then failed to investigate…

The U.S. Supreme Court has said the death penal­ty must be reserved for the worst of the worst mur­ders and be imposed only on the worst of the worst offend­ers. But what of an accom­plice to a felony in which some­one was killed but the accom­plice nei­ther com­mit­ted the killing nor intend­ed that a killing would take place? Those co-defen­dants are not even the worst of the worst par­tic­i­pants in the offense for which they are charged. Yet, as the American Civil Liberties Union…

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has announced its intent to adopt a new fed­er­al exe­cu­tion pro­to­col using a sin­gle exe­cu­tion drug and has issued death war­rants set­ting exe­cu­tion dates for five fed­er­al death-row pris­on­ers. In a July 25, 2019 press release, the DOJ said that Attorney General William P. Barr had direct­ed the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to adopt an adden­dum to the fed­er­al exe­cu­tion pro­to­col spec­i­fy­ing that fed­er­al exe­cu­tions will be car­ried out using the drug…