Publications & Testimony

The American Bar Association has urged the Nevada Supreme Court to pro­hib­it the use of the death penal­ty against peo­ple who are severe­ly men­tal­ly ill. In a friend-of-the-court brief filed October 3, 2019 in the case of death-row pris­on­er Siaosi Vanisi, the ABA argued that impos­ing the death penal­ty on peo­ple with severe men­tal ill­ness serves no legit­i­mate peno­log­i­cal pur­pose and asked the court to ​“cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly prohibit the…

Facing a poten­tial back­lash from major aid donors, Uganda’s pres­i­dent has attempt­ed to dis­tance his gov­ern­ment from leg­isla­tive efforts to rein­tro­duce a bill that would make con­sen­su­al same-sex acts pun­ish­able by the death penal­ty and crim­i­nal­ize ​“pro­mo­tion and recruit­ment” of homo­sex­u­al­i­ty. The so-called ​“Kill the Gays” bill pre­vi­ous­ly pro­mot­ed by gov­ern­ment offi­cials would great­ly expand the pun­ish­ment of homo­sex­u­al­i­ty under Ugandan law. The pro­posed bill is a more dra­con­ian ver­sion of a…

The case of Texas death-row pris­on­er Rodney Reed (pic­tured, right), who is fac­ing exe­cu­tion in Texas on November 20, 2019 despite pow­er­ful evi­dence of inno­cence, is attract­ing nation­al atten­tion from unusu­al sources. On October 10 and 11, the syn­di­cat­ed tele­vi­sion show Dr. Phil devot­ed two episodes to an inves­ti­ga­tion of the inno­cence claims in Reed’s…

A three-judge pan­el of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has grant­ed a stay of exe­cu­tion for fed­er­al death row pris­on­er Lezmond Mitchell to pre­vent the U.S. gov­ern­ment from exe­cut­ing him before the court can review an on-going appeal con­cern­ing pos­si­ble anti-Native American bias in his case. Mitchell, who was sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed on December 11, 2019, is a mem­ber of the Navajo Nation and the only Native American on fed­er­al death row. His case is one of…

Florida has sched­uled the exe­cu­tion of 73-year-old James Dailey (pic­tured) for November 7, 2019, despite sub­stan­tial evi­dence that he had no involve­ment in the killing, includ­ing a state­ment by the admit­ted killer, Daley’s co-defen­dant, that he had act­ed alone. Dailey stands to be either the 100 death-row pris­on­er put to death by Florida since exe­cu­tions resumed in the 1970s or the state’s 30^th death-row…

In the lat­est episode of Discussions with DPIC, Texas cap­i­tal defense lawyer James Rytting (pic­tured) dis­cuss­es the case of his client, Larry Swearingen, and the junk sci­ence that led to the exe­cu­tion of a man legit­i­mate sci­ence strong­ly sug­gests was inno­cent. Rytting describes the false foren­sic analy­sis pre­sent­ed under the guise of sci­ence in Swearingen’s case, the appel­late process that makes it ​“almost impos­si­ble” to obtain…

The 2019 – 2020 U.S. Supreme Court term opened on October 7 with the Court declin­ing to review chal­lenges to death-penal­ty court deci­sions from a num­ber of states and with the Court hear­ing argu­ment in a Kansas death-penal­ty case rais­ing con­sti­tu­tion­al ques­tions about a defendant’s right to present an insanity…

Change is com­ing to Oklahoma​’s row. In July, a coali­tion of pris­on­ers’ rights orga­ni­za­tions called the state’s pol­i­cy of hous­ing its death-row pris­on­ers in soli­tary con­fine­ment in an under­ground facil­i­ty ​“inhu­mane and oppres­sive” and threat­ened legal action if reforms were not forth­com­ing. On September 26, 2019, the Oklahoma Department of Corrections announced that with­in 30 days it would be relo­cat­ing ​“all qual­i­fy­ing death row inmates” to a different…

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has rein­stat­ed the death sen­tence of Paul Storey (pic­tured), after a Tarrant County judge had reduced his sen­tence to life because a pros­e­cu­tor had lied at tri­al about the victim’s family’s views on the death penal­ty. In a divid­ed opin­ion issued October 2, 2019, the court did not address the mer­its of Storey’s claim that his death sen­tence should be over­turned because the pros­e­cu­tion had pre­sent­ed false evidence and…