Publications & Testimony

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…

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,…

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…

A Missouri death-row pris­on­er whose rare med­ical con­di­tion, he says, risks mak­ing his exe­cu­tion by lethal injec­tion a grue­some and gris­ly spec­ta­cle is seek­ing clemen­cy from Missouri Governor Mike Parson ahead of his October 1, 2019 execution…

NEWS — October 3 – 4, 2019: In the span of two days, three new death sen­tences were imposed and three exe­cu­tions were halt­ed across the…

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…

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…

Texas is prepar­ing to exe­cute Robert Sparks (pic­tured, left), on September 25, 2019, as a sec­ond death-row pris­on­er, Stephen Barbee (pic­tured, below), received a stay from the Texas Court of…

Federal law­suits filed by coali­tions of media orga­ni­za­tions in two states high­light recent media efforts to vin­di­cate the public’s right to wit­ness exe­cu­tions in their entire­ty. On September 17, 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled in a case brought by a coali­tion of Arizona media orga­ni­za­tions that the First Amendment right to wit­ness an exe­cu­tion encom­pass­es the right to hear the exe­cu­tion in its entire­ty. On…

As U.S. tax­pay­ers pick up a tab of more than $6 bil­lion and climb­ing, for­mer top offi­cials involved in the mil­i­tary com­mis­sion death-penal­­ty cas­es against Guantánamo Bay detainees have blast­ed the mil­i­tary tri­bunals for waste, mis­man­age­ment, and…