Publications & Testimony

Lawyers for Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (pic­tured) sought to over­turn his con­vic­tion and fed­er­al death sen­tence on Thursday, argu­ing in a fed­er­al appeals court that he could not get a fair tri­al in a city still trau­ma­tized by the attack. During the two-hour argu­ment before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston on December 12, 2019, they also claimed Tsarnaev was denied an impar­tial jury when the tri­al court prohibited him…

In his last series of acts before leav­ing office, out­go­ing Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin (pic­tured) has com­mut­ed the sen­tences of two of the state’s longest serv­ing death-row pris­on­ers to life with the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole. On Friday, December 6, 2019, Bevin com­mut­ed the death sen­tence of Gregory Wilson, whose tri­al pro­ceed­ings had been described as a trav­es­ty of jus­tice. Then on Monday, December 9 — the governor’s last day in…

When Indiana exe­cut­ed Matthew Wrinkles on December 11, 2009, it was the twen­ti­eth exe­cu­tion car­ried out since the state rein­stat­ed the death penal­ty in May of 1973. It was also the last exe­cu­tion the state…

Texas is prepar­ing to exe­cute Travis Runnels (pic­tured) on December 11, 2019 based on the​“expert” tes­ti­mo­ny of a pros­e­cu­tion inves­ti­ga­tor whose false depic­tion of prison con­di­tions has helped to put fif­teen defen­dants on the state’s death row. If Runnels is exe­cut­ed, he will be the third per­son put to death in Texas this year after for­mer Texas Special Prosecution Unit crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tor, A.P. Merillat provided false…

The United States Supreme Court has denied an appli­ca­tion by the U.S. Department of Justice to lift a fed­er­al court injunc­tion block­ing the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment from car­ry­ing out four exe­cu­tions sched­uled for December 2019 and January 2020. The Court’s unan­i­mous rul­ing, issued Friday evening December 6, ensures that there will be no federal…

A fed­er­al appeals court has reversed the con­vic­tion of Arizona death-row pris­on­er Barry Jones (pic­tured) based on med­ical evi­dence sug­gest­ing that he may not have com­mit­ted the mur­der for which he was…

The state of Tennessee exe­cut­ed Lee Hall (pic­tured) on December 5, 2019, with­out pro­vid­ing him judi­cial review of a legal claim that led the state’s courts to over­turn the con­vic­tion of a for­mer death-row prisoner…

Lawyers for fed­er­al death-row pris­on­er Wesley Purkey, who is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed on December 13, 2019, say he is incom­pe­tent to be exe­cut­ed because he has Alzheimer’s dis­ease, schiz­o­phre­nia, and trau­mat­ic brain injuries that​“ren­der him unable to ratio­nal­ly under­stand the rea­son the United States seeks…

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has asked the United States Supreme Court to lift a fed­er­al dis­trict court injunc­tion that is cur­rent­ly block­ing the gov­ern­ment from car­ry­ing out four sched­uled exe­cu­tions. The fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors’ December 2, 2019 fil­ing came with­in hours of a rul­ing by a unan­i­mous fed­er­al appeals pan­el in Washington that had refused to vacate the injunc­tion. The first of the fed­er­al exe­cu­tions is sched­uled for 8:00 a.m.

Saying that​“Virginia’s death penal­ty fails vic­tims’ fam­i­lies,” 13 fam­i­ly mem­bers of Virginia homi­cide vic­tims — includ­ing the daugh­ter of a sheriff’s deputy whose assailant was exe­cut­ed — have called on Virginia leg­is­la­tors to abolish…