Publications & Testimony

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.

NEWS — October 18: The Nebraska Supreme Court has dis­missed a chal­lenge to the state’s exe­cu­tion pro­to­col brought by the Rev. Stephen C. Griffith and State Senator Ernie Chambers, who had alleged that the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services had failed to com­ply with statu­to­ri­ly and con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly required pro­ce­dures in adopt­ing the pro­to­col. The court did not uphold the pro­to­col, but ruled that Griffith and Chambers lacked standing to…

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…

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…

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…

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…

NEWS — October 11: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has affirmed a Nevada dis­trict court’s deci­sion to uphold death-row pris­on­er Zane Floyd​’s con­vic­tion and death sen­tence. Among oth­er issues, the court found that the pros­e­cu­tor’s mis­con­duct by telling the jury that Floyd’s killing of four peo­ple was​“the worst mas­sacre in the his­to­ry of Las Vegas” and elic­it­ing exten­sive uncon­sti­tu­tion­al tes­ti­mo­ny by the moth­er of one of the…

Texas state courts have halt­ed the exe­cu­tions of two con­demned pris­on­ers who had been fac­ing immi­nent exe­cu­tion dates. On October 4, 2019, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals stayed the October 10 exe­cu­tion of Randy Halprin (pic­tured, left) and direct­ed a Dallas tri­al court to con­sid­er his claim that the reli­gious big­otry of the judge who presided over his case denied him a fair tri­al before an impar­tial tri­bunal. The previous day,…

Jurors in South Carolina report that they are expe­ri­enc­ing pro­found psy­cho­log­i­cal effects from their expo­sure to graph­i­cal­ly vio­lent images, tes­ti­mo­ny, and argu­ment dur­ing the death-penal­­ty tri­al of Tim Jones, Jr. (pic­tured). Three months after the June 13, 2019 con­clu­sion of the penal­ty phase of a tri­al in which jurors sen­tenced Jones to death for killing his five young chil­dren, nine of the 18 Lexington County jurors and…