Publications & Testimony

With seri­ous doubts swirling as to vir­tu­al­ly every piece of foren­sic evi­dence in his case, Texas plans to exe­cute Larry Swearingen—who has always main­tained his inno­cence in the mur­der of Melissa Trotter — on August 21, 2019. His attor­neys say his con­vic­tion is ground­ed in junk sci­ence that has been repu­di­at­ed by numer­ous foren­sic experts, includ­ing false tes­ti­mo­ny regard­ing panty­hose used to stran­gle Trotter, blood found under her fin­ger­nails, and the time of…

Leaders from two of the three con­gre­ga­tions affect­ed by the October 27, 2018 shoot­ings at the Tree of Life syn­a­gogue (pic­tured) in Pittsburgh are ask­ing the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment not to seek a death sen­tence for the accused white supremacist…

The U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Reform announced on August 14, 2019 that it has launched an inves­ti­ga­tion into the Department of Justice’s plan to restart fed­er­al exe­cu­tions using the drug pen­to­bar­bi­tal. Citing con­cerns about the source of drugs the Administration intends to use in five exe­cu­tions it has sched­uled in December 2019 and January 2020, the Oversight Committee’s Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties has sought doc­u­ments and infor­ma­tion from…

NEWS: Texas and Florida car­ried out the 12^th and 13^th U.S. exe­cu­tions in 2019 on August 21 and August 22. They were the fourth exe­cu­tion in Texas and the sec­ond in Florida this…

A life sen­tence recent­ly imposed in America’s dead­liest death-penal­ty coun­ty illus­trates the impact of Alabama​’s 2017 repeal of its for­mer law per­mit­ting tri­al judges to impose the death penal­ty despite jury votes for life. On August 9, 2019, Houston County Judge Larry Anderson sen­tenced Nathaniel Dennis to life in prison with­out parole for the mur­der of a con­ve­nience store clerk, after the jury in his case rec­om­mend­ed a life sentence.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has stayed the exe­cu­tion of Texas death-row pris­on­er Dexter Darnell Johnson one day before he was sched­uled to die. The rul­ing, issued late in the day on August 14, 2019, per­mits Johnson to lit­i­gate his claim that he is inel­i­gi­ble for the death penal­ty because of intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty. The stay marked the sec­ond time in four months that fed­er­al courts inter­vened in Johnson’s case to halt a looming…

The high cost of meet­ing its oblig­a­tion to pro­vide con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly-man­dat­ed effec­tive rep­re­sen­ta­tion for indi­gent defen­dants in cap­i­tal cas­es con­tin­ues to gen­er­ate con­tro­ver­sy in Utah​’s fourth largest coun­ty. With two cap­i­tal tri­als pend­ing and a lengthy post-con­vic­tion pro­ceed­ing under­way on whether a court-appoint­ed lawyer in a third cap­i­tal case pro­vid­ed inef­fec­tive rep­re­sen­ta­tion, the Salt Lake Tribune reports that Weber County is fac­ing bills…

Sister Helen Prejean, the acclaimed author of Dead Man Walking, has writ­ten a new spir­i­tu­al mem­oir, River of Fire: My Spiritual Journey. The book, released August 13, 2019 by Random House pub­lish­ers, tells the sto­ry of her spir­i­tu­al devel­op­ment from join­ing the Congregation of St. Joseph at age 18 to becom­ing a lead­ing voice in the move­ment to abol­ish the death…

Advocates from a vari­ety of back­grounds are urg­ing Tennessee Governor Bill Lee to stop the August 15, 2019 exe­cu­tion of Stephen West (pic­tured), say­ing that West did not com­mit the mur­der and urg­ing the gov­er­nor not to exe­cute a man who is severe­ly men­tal­ly ill. [UPDATE: Governor Lee denied clemen­cy and West was exe­cut­ed on August…

NEWS — August 15: Tennessee has exe­cut­ed Stephen Michael West after Governor Bill Lee denied his peti­tion for clemen­cy. West was the eleventh per­son exe­cut­ed in the United States in 2019 and the sec­ond in Tennessee. He was the first exe­cu­tion by elec­tric chair this year. 1,501 pris­on­ers have been exe­cut­ed in the United States since cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment resumed in the 1970s. Tennessee has car­ried out 11 exe­cu­tions in that peri­od, five of them since August…