Publications & Testimony

NEWS — September 19: Oregon Governor Kate Brown has announced she will not call a spe­cial ses­sion to address whether the state’s new law lim­it­ing the types of mur­ders pun­ish­able by death applies to future resen­tenc­ing pro­ceed­ings for pris­on­ers cur­rent­ly on the state’s death row. The new law, which goes into effect on September 29, is not retroac­tive and would not over­turn exist­ing death sen­tences. However, it applies to all future capital sentencing…

As the September 11, 2019 Pennsylvania Supreme Court argu­ment date approached in two cas­es chal­leng­ing the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the state’s death penal­ty, com­men­ta­tors and stake­hold­ers weighed in on the case in op-eds across the state. These opin­ion arti­cles high­light­ed the work of a June 2018 report by the Pennsylvania Task Force and Advisory Committee on Capital Punishment that found deep flaws in the admin­is­tra­tion of the Commonwealth’s death…

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court (mem­bers pic­tured) heard oral argu­ment on September 11, 2019 on whether to exer­cise its extra­or­di­nary​“King’s Bench” pow­ers to deter­mine whether the death penal­ty, as cur­rent­ly applied in the Commonwealth, vio­lates the Pennsylvania con­sti­tu­tion. If the court agrees to reach the con­sti­tu­tion­al issue, it has the pow­er to strike down the death penal­ty, uphold its con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty, or issue direc­tives or standards regarding…

Saying that​“suf­fo­ca­tion does not qual­i­fy as​‘severe pain and need­less suf­fer­ing,’” a fed­er­al appeals court in Ohio has ruled that the state’s three-drug exe­cu­tion pro­to­col does not vio­late the con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­hi­bi­tion against cruel and…

Texas exe­cut­ed Mark Soliz (pic­tured) on September 10, 2019, after a fed­er­al appeals court denied him a stay and dis­missed his claim that his life­long men­tal impair­ments result­ing from fetal alco­hol syn­drome should exempt him from exe­cu­tion. Soliz had sought a stay and to be resen­tenced to life with­out parole, argu­ing that his mother’s alco­hol con­sump­tion dur­ing her preg­nan­cy impaired his intel­lec­tu­al devel­op­ment in a manner that…

A coali­tion of nation­al and local Jewish orga­ni­za­tions and lawyers have asked the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to stop the sched­uled October 10, 2019 exe­cu­tion of a Jewish death-row pris­on­er to review his claim that the judge before whom he was tried was racist and anti-Semitic. Randy Halprin (pic­tured) was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in a tri­al presided over by Dallas County Judge Vickers Cunningham, who referred to…

NEWS — September 10: Texas’ exe­cu­tion of Mark Soliz was the 1505^th exe­cu­tion in the U.S. since the rein­state­ment of the death penal­ty in the 1970s. Texas has car­ried out 37.5% of all exe­cu­tions dur­ing that peri­od. It was the 15^th exe­cu­tion in the U.S. in 2019, and the 6^th in Texas. Nine of the 17 pend­ing exe­cu­tions sched­uled in the U.S. in the rest of 2019…

Thirty-three years after a tri­al a fed­er­al appeals court described as​“a mix­ture of dis­turb­ing pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct and woe­ful­ly inad­e­quate assis­tance of coun­sel,” a Las Vegas tri­al court freed Paul Browning (pic­tured) from Nevada​’s death row. On August 21, 2019, Clark County District Judge Douglas Herndon ­— who in March had dis­missed mur­der and relat­ed charges against Browning ­— ordered state…

Thirty-two years after he was sen­tenced to death in a tri­al taint­ed by pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct, Tennessee death-row pris­on­er Abu-Ali Abdur’Rahman (pic­tured) has been resen­tenced to life in prison. On August 30, 2019, Davidson County Criminal Court Judge Monte Watkins approved a plea deal reached between Abdur’Rahman and Nashville pros­e­cu­tors, vacat­ed Abdur’Rahman’s death sen­tence, and in its place imposed three…

Texas exe­cut­ed death-row pris­on­er Billy Jack Crutsinger on September 4, 2019, despite, his cur­rent lawyers say, hav­ing pro­vid­ed him with an incom­pe­tent appeals lawyer who repeat­ed­ly filed friv­o­lous claims and cut and past­ed con­tra­dic­to­ry claims and argu­ments from pri­or clients’ court plead­ings. Crutsinger had asked the U.S. Supreme Court to halt his exe­cu­tion to review whether the tri­al court’s appoint­ment of a lawyer​“who was not…