Publications & Testimony

Glynn Simmons, who was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in Oklahoma in 1975, has been exon­er­at­ed after Oklahoma County District Attorney Vicki Behenna dropped charges against him. Mr. Simmons told The Black Wall Street Times, ​“I’m hap­py, and I’m free. It’s a long, long strug­gle. … We need to reimag­ine jus­tice and how we do it.” DA Behenna said of the case, ​“One of the things that I stand by very strong­ly is a defen­dan­t’s right to a fair tri­al, where he has all the evi­dence to defend him­self. That did­n’t happen…

On September 14^th, 2023, the American Bar Association’s Death Penalty Representation Project held its annu­al Volunteer Recognition & Awards Program, hon­or­ing Venable LLP for its pro bono rep­re­sen­ta­tion of death row pris­on­ers, and cap­i­tal defense attor­ney and Florida State University College of Law pro­fes­sor Mark E. Olive, for his life­time com­mit­ment to pro­vid­ing those on death row with qual­i­ty rep­re­sen­ta­tion. Director of the ABA’s Death Penalty Representation Project Emily Olson-Gault not­ed that ​“there is a shrink­ing world of rights for death penal­ty lit­i­gants in the wake of dev­ast­ing U.S. Supreme…

According to a September 14, 2023, arti­cle from The Intercept, four med­ical sup­ply man­u­fac­tur­ers are refus­ing to sell their equip­ment for use in lethal injec­tion exe­cu­tions. This lim­i­ta­tion may fur­ther ham­per the abil­i­ty of states to car­ry out exe­cu­tions, as a mul­ti­tude of phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies have already placed restric­tions on sell­ing their drugs to depart­ments of cor­rec­tion. Joining these com­pa­nies are Baxter International Inc., B. Braun Medical Inc., Fresenius Kabi, and Johnson & Johnson. Not only do these com­pa­nies pro­duce the drugs need­ed for lethal injec­tion, but they also develop…

On September 12, 2023, East Baton Rouge District Attorney Hillar Moore filed a request for injunc­tive relief, ask­ing the 19^th Judicial District Court to vacate hear­ings sched­uled for three East Baton Rouge Parish pris­on­ers who have request­ed clemen­cy. In June 2023, 51 death-sen­tenced indi­vid­u­als filed clemen­cy appli­ca­tions with the Louisiana Board of Pardons and Committee on Parole, request­ing a com­mu­ta­tion of their death sen­tences to life with­out parole. Five addi­tion­al appli­ca­tions from death row pris­on­ers have since been sub­mit­ted to the Board. DA Moore’s motion comes in response to the…

In most states, a death sen­tence may only be imposed by a jury in unan­i­mous agree­ment. But in two recent cas­es, defen­dants faced the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a death sen­tence despite the objec­tions of jurors. 

On September 6, 2023, a bipar­ti­san group of Ohio state rep­re­sen­ta­tives rein­tro­duced a bill that would abol­ish the death penal­ty and replace the pun­ish­ment with life in prison with­out parole. Legislators in Ohio have debat­ed the use of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment for near­ly a decade, but this renewed effort comes after state sen­a­tors intro­duced Senate Bill 101 ear­li­er in the year, which would also abol­ish the use of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Among the pri­ma­ry spon­sors of these bills is Representative Jean Schmidt (R‑Loveland). Representative Schmidt cit­ed her pro-life val­ues in her support…

In an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, nov­el­ist John Grisham recounts the flawed sci­ence that led to the con­vic­tion of Robert Roberson (pic­tured, with his daugh­ter Nikki) and the inad­e­quate legal process that has main­tained that con­vic­tion. Mr. Roberson was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death for the 2002 death of his 2‑year-old daugh­ter Nikki. His con­vic­tion relied on a the­o­ry of ​“shak­en baby syn­drome” that has since been dis­cred­it­ed. After a hear­ing ordered by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, a Texas judge rub­ber­stamped a brief sub­mit­ted by Anderson…

On September 5, 2023, Jesse Johnson (pic­tured) was released from Marion County Jail in Oregon when pros­e­cu­tors for­mal­ly declined to retry him for the 1998 mur­der of Harriet Thompson. Mr. Johnson was con­vict­ed of Ms. Thompson’s mur­der in 2004 and sen­tenced to death. In ask­ing the Marion County Circuit Court to dis­miss the case against Mr. Johnson, the coun­ty District Attorney’s office stat­ed that ​“based upon the amount of time that has passed and the unavail­abil­i­ty of crit­i­cal evi­dence in this case, the state no longer believes that it can…

Family mem­bers of some of the vic­tims of 9/​11 have asked the Biden Administration to aban­don cur­rent plea nego­ti­a­tions with Guantánamo detainees that would remove the pos­si­bil­i­ty of death sen­tences for the men accused of plan­ning the 9/​11 ter­ror attacks. Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and his four co-defen­dants have been held for more than twen­ty years, first at CIA black sites where they were sub­ject to ​“enhanced inter­ro­ga­tion tech­niques” and then at Guantánamo, but none has pro­ceed­ed to tri­al. The request came after fam­i­ly mem­bers were noti­fied by the Pentagon on August…

On August 4, a South Korean nation­al con­vict­ed of drug-traf­fick­ing was exe­cut­ed in China, accord­ing to South Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who added dur­ing a press con­fer­ence that this exe­cu­tion was ​“unre­lat­ed to the cur­rent bilat­er­al rela­tions” between the two nations. This was the first time a South Korean nation­al was exe­cut­ed in China for drug-traf­fick­ing since 2014, when four were executed.