Publications & Testimony

A Dallas, Texas, coun­ty com­mis­sion­er has called for a two-year halt on death-penal­ty tri­als, say­ing it would give the coun­ty time to study the finan­cial and eth­i­cal costs of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. On August 6, 2019, Commissioner J.J. Koch (pic­tured) pro­posed a coun­ty mora­to­ri­um on cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tions, with cost sav­ings from not pur­su­ing the death penal­ty redi­rect­ed toward inves­ti­gat­ing and pros­e­cut­ing human traf­fick­ing cas­es. The pro­pos­al was notable com­ing in…

Oklahoma​’s prac­tice of auto­mat­i­cal­ly hous­ing death-row pris­on­ers in soli­tary con­fine­ment and deny­ing them com­mu­nal reli­gious ser­vices is uncon­sti­tu­tion­al and inhu­mane, a coali­tion of nation­al and local civ­il rights orga­ni­za­tions says. In a July 29, 2019 let­ter to inter­im Oklahoma Department of Corrections (ODOC) direc­tor Scott Crow, the coali­tion — head­ed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma—report­ed that its two-year inves­ti­ga­tion into the state’s…

Following the trends across most of the Midwest, the death penal­ty is wan­ing in Indiana. Capital pros­e­cu­tions are down, no jury has vot­ed for death since 2013, and the state is clos­ing in on its tenth con­sec­u­tive year with­out an exe­cu­tion. An August 4, 2019 Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette review of the death penal­ty in the state reports that even high-pro­file mur­ders that start­ed out as death-penal­ty cas­es have recent­ly been resolved with non-capital…

A fed­er­al appeals court has cleared the way for a civ­il law­suit by two North Carolina death-row exonerees to advance to tri­al, reject­ing a claim that police offi­cers who alleged­ly vio­lat­ed their con­sti­tu­tion­al rights were immune from lia­bil­i­ty. On July 31, 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit upheld a tri­al court rul­ing allow­ing Henry McCollum (pic­tured, left) and Leon Brown (pic­tured, right) to sue North Carolina…

A for­mer high-rank­ing fed­er­al cor­rec­tions offi­cial has warned that the fed­er­al government’s plan to exe­cute five pris­on­ers over a five-week peri­od in December and January risks seri­ous­ly trau­ma­tiz­ing cor­rec­tion­al work­ers. Allen Ault (pic­tured) is a for­mer chief of the Justice Department’s National Institute of Corrections who also served as cor­rec­tions com­mis­sion­er in Georgia, Mississippi, and Colorado, and as chair­man of the Florida Department of Corrections. In a July 31, 2019 op-ed in…

Calling the state’s death penal­ty ​“dys­func­tion­al,” ​“cost­ly,” and ​“immoral,” Oregon Governor Kate Brown (pic­tured, left, at sign­ing cer­e­mo­ny) on August 1, 2019 signed a bill sig­nif­i­cant­ly lim­it­ing the crimes for which cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment can be imposed in the state. The new law amends Oregon’s def­i­n­i­tion of death-eli­gi­ble ​“aggra­vat­ed mur­der,” reduc­ing the cat­e­gories of mur­der pun­ish­able by death from 19 to four. The new law restricts the death penal­ty to cases…

Ohio can­not obtain drugs to car­ry out exe­cu­tions with­out putting pub­lic health at risk, Governor Mike DeWine (pic­tured) announced on July 31, 2019. DeWine told reporters that phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal man­u­fac­tur­ers are unwill­ing to sell the state drugs for exe­cu­tions and have threat­ened to stop sell­ing med­i­cines to any state agency if they sus­pect the drugs might be divert­ed from ther­a­peu­tic use to use in exe­cu­tions. A sales embar­go could mean that the state would not be able to obtain med­i­cines for…

Citing tri­al court inter­fer­ence in her right to present a defense, a fed­er­al appeals court has over­turned the con­vic­tion of a Texas moth­er who was sen­tenced to death on charges that she had mur­dered her two-year-old daugh­ter. In an unpub­lished, unsigned opin­ion issued on July 29, 2019, a unan­i­mous three-judge pan­el of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit said that tri­al court rul­ings that blocked Melissa Elizabeth Lucio (pic­tured) from call­ing an expert wit­ness to…

The announce­ment by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) that it intends to resume fed­er­al exe­cu­tions after a 16-year hia­tus has sparked com­men­tary from across the polit­i­cal spec­trum and embold­ened the Arizona Attorney General to seek a resump­tion of exe­cu­tions in that state. Responses from con­ser­v­a­tive pun­dits demon­strat­ed the increas­ing bipar­ti­san skep­ti­cism towards the death penal­ty. Catholic bish­ops reassert­ed the Church’s now unequiv­o­cal oppo­si­tion to cap­i­tal punishment.