Publications & Testimony

The Kentucky Supreme Court has heard oral argu­ment and will soon decide whether sub­ject­ing youth­ful offend­ers under age 21 to the death penal­ty vio­lates the con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­hi­bi­tion against cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment. On September 19, 2019, the Court heard argu­ment in the government’s appeals of two cap­i­tal cas­es in which a tri­al judge barred coun­ty pros­e­cu­tors from seek­ing the death penal­ty because the defen­dants charged with the mur­ders were younger than age 21 when the…

Texas is prepar­ing to exe­cute Robert Sparks (pic­tured, left), on September 25, 2019, as a sec­ond death-row pris­on­er, Stephen Barbee (pic­tured, below), received a stay from the Texas Court of Criminal…

Federal law­suits filed by coali­tions of media orga­ni­za­tions in two states high­light recent media efforts to vin­di­cate the public’s right to wit­ness exe­cu­tions in their entire­ty. On September 17, 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled in a case brought by a coali­tion of Arizona media orga­ni­za­tions that the First Amendment right to wit­ness an exe­cu­tion encom­pass­es the right to hear the exe­cu­tion in its entire­ty. On the heels of that ruling,…

As U.S. tax­pay­ers pick up a tab of more than $6 bil­lion and climb­ing, for­mer top offi­cials involved in the mil­i­tary com­mis­sion death-penal­ty cas­es against Guantánamo Bay detainees have blast­ed the mil­i­tary tri­bunals for waste, mis­man­age­ment, and…

NEWS — September 26: The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has declined to address the state con­sti­tu­tion­al chal­lenge to the Commonwealth’s death penal­ty brought by two death-row pris­on­ers. In a one-page per curi­am order, the court denied the King’s Bench peti­tions filed by Russell Cox and Kevin Marinelli, which had asked the court to exer­cise its extra­or­di­nary juris­dic­tion to hear their chal­lenge. The court ruled that “[d]iscrete review of…

As U.S. tax­pay­ers pick up a tab of more than $6 bil­lion and climb­ing, for­mer top offi­cials involved in the mil­i­tary com­mis­sion death-penal­ty cas­es against Guantánamo Bay detainees have blast­ed the mil­i­tary tri­bunals for waste, mis­man­age­ment, and…

A fed­er­al appeals court has vacat­ed the death sen­tence imposed on a North Carolina death-row pris­on­er, find­ing that one of his jurors improp­er­ly con­sult­ed her pas­tor about her deci­sion and then com­mu­ni­cat­ed the pas­tor’s advice to fel­low jurors. In a 2 – 1 deci­sion, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled on September 12, 2019 that William Leroy Barnes (pic­tured) had been denied his Sixth Amendment right to tri­al by an impar­tial jury and reversed…

In February 2017, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit over­turned the con­vic­tion and death sen­tence of Tennessee death-row pris­on­er Andrew Lee Thomas, Jr., rul­ing that Shelby County District Attorney General Amy Weirich had uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly with­held evi­dence that a key pros­e­cu­tion wit­ness had been paid for her coop­er­a­tion in the case and then delib­er­ate­ly elicit­ed per­jured tes­ti­mo­ny from the wit­ness that she had…

Defendants con­vict­ed of killing white vic­tims in Georgia are 17 times more like­ly to be exe­cut­ed than those con­vict­ed of mur­der­ing black vic­tims, a new study by researchers at the University of Denver has found, and the prob­lem of dis­crim­i­na­tion is wors­ened by the appeal…

Supporters of Rodney Reed (pic­tured) are call­ing for a new tri­al for the Texas death-row pris­on­er sen­tenced to death in 1998 by an all-white jury in a racial­ly charged tri­al. On September 10, 2019, Reed’s fam­i­ly and sup­port­ers protest­ed Texas’ death penal­ty out­side the governor’s man­sion in Austin. Their plea for a new tri­al based on evi­dence of his inno­cence has been joined by a grow­ing cho­rus of sup­port­ers, which include the Innocence Project, the victim’s…