Publications & Testimony

Items: 1511 — 1520


Oct 07, 2019

Death Penalty News and Developments for October 7 — October 132019

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…

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Oct 04, 2019

Texas Courts Halt Two Imminent Executions

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,…

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Oct 03, 2019

Jurors Report Experiencing Continuing Trauma After Serving in South Carolina Death-Penalty Trial

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…

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Oct 02, 2019

Ohio Governor Grants Reprieve to Prisoner Who Was Abandoned by Attorneys

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine has grant­ed a reprieve to Cleveland Jackson, delay­ing his exe­cu­tion date from November 13, 2019 to January 13, 2021, because of a mis­con­duct com­plaint filed against his pre­vi­ous appel­late attor­neys. The ethics com­plaint alleges that John Gibbons and James Jenkins, who were appoint­ed in 2007 to rep­re­sent Jackson dur­ing his habeas cor­pus appeal, missed crit­i­cal fil­ing dead­lines, did not meet with their client for years, and even…

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Oct 01, 2019

After Nearly Six Years in Jail Because of Unaffordable Bail, Kentucky Man Acquitted of Capital Murder

A Kentucky man who lan­guished in jail for near­ly six years because of bail he could not afford has been acquit­ted of cap­i­tal mur­der and relat­ed charges. Eugene​“Red” Mitchell (pic­tured) faced the death penal­ty on charges that he had raped, sodom­ized, and mur­dered Sheila Devine, a Louisville grand­moth­er. On September 18, 2019, a Jefferson County jury found Mitchell not guilty of all charges against him. He had spent five years,…

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Oct 01, 2019

United States Supreme Court Decisions: 2018 – 2019 Term

In a 7 – 2 deci­sion, the Supreme Court over­turned the con­vic­tion of Curtis Giovanni Flowers, a Mississippi death row pris­on­er who has been tried six times for a noto­ri­ous 1996 quadru­ple mur­der in Winona, Mississippi. Three of the first five tri­als end­ed in con­vic­tions that were over­turned on appeal and two tri­als result­ed in hung juries. The lead pros­e­cu­tor for all six tri­als was Doug Evans, the District Attorney in…

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Sep 27, 2019

Tennessee Attorney General Asks State Supreme Court to Schedule Nine Executions and Undo Plea Deal that Took a Tenth Prisoner off Death Row

Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery (pic­tured) has asked the Tennessee Supreme Court to set exe­cu­tion dates for an unprece­dent­ed nine death-row pris­on­ers, the largest exe­cu­tion request in the mod­ern his­to­ry of Tennessee’s death penal­ty. On the same day, September 20, 2019, Slatery attempt­ed to inter­vene in the case of death-row pris­on­er Abu-Ali Abdur’Rahman to reac­ti­vate his death war­rant and undo a court-approved…

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Sep 26, 2019

Kentucky Supreme Court Hears Arguments on Raising Death-Penalty Eligibility Age

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…

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