Publications & Testimony

A Kentucky tri­al court has issued an order declar­ing the Commonwealth’s exe­cu­tion pro­to­col uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. It was the third time in a decade the state courts have ruled in favor of death-row pris­on­ers in their chal­lenges to the pro­to­col. The July 2, 2019 rul­ing by Franklin Circuit Court Judge Phillip J. Shepherd came in response to a claim brought by the state’s death-row pris­on­ers that Kentucky’s exe­cu­tion reg­u­la­tions could allow Kentucky to…

An Indiana fed­er­al dis­trict court judge has vacat­ed the death sen­tence imposed on fed­er­al death-row pris­on­er Bruce Webster, find­ing that Webster is inel­i­gi­ble for the death penal­ty because he is intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled. After a five-day hear­ing in April 2019, in which the court heard live tes­ti­mo­ny from sev­en men­tal health experts and con­sid­ered depo­si­tion tes­ti­mo­ny from three oth­ers, Senior Judge William T. Lawrence of the Southern District of Indiana ruled on June 18, 2019…

“Being the sur­vivor of a homi­cide vic­tim has a pain for which there aren’t any words,” says New Hampshire Representative Renny Cushing (pic­tured), in the lat­est episode of the Death Penalty Information Center pod­cast, Discussions with DPIC. But “[f]illing anoth­er cof­fin doesn’t do any­thing to bring our loved ones back, it just widens the cir­cle of pain. There’s a big dif­fer­ence between jus­tice and vengeance,” he…

The New Mexico Supreme Court has cleared the state’s death row, vacat­ing the death sen­tences imposed on the state’s final two death-row pris­on­ers, and direct­ing that they be resen­tenced to life in prison. The rul­ings, issued by a divid­ed court on June 28, 2019 in the cas­es of Timothy Allen (pic­tured, left) and Robert Fry (pic­tured, right), came almost ten years to the day after New Mexico’s death-penal­ty abo­li­tion, signed into law by…

At the mid­point of 2019, death sen­tences and exe­cu­tions remain near his­toric lows in the United States, with exe­cu­tions and pend­ing exe­cu­tion dates con­cen­trat­ed heav­i­ly in a few south­ern states. The year’s exe­cu­tions and new death sen­tences have dis­pro­por­tion­al­ly involved defen­dants or pris­on­ers with men­tal ill­ness, brain dam­age, and/​or severe child­hood trau­ma, and those with inad­e­quate rep­re­sen­ta­tion. New Hampshire became the 21^st state to abol­ish the death penal­ty, and California’s governor…

NEWS: July 6—Pennsylvania has joined the list of states that have not car­ried out an exe­cu­tion in more than 20 years. Five death-penal­ty states (Colorado, Kansas, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Wyoming) and the U.S. mil­i­tary now have not con­duct­ed an exe­cu­tion in at least two decades. More than half of the states in the U.S. (26), as well as the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. mil­i­tary either do not have the death penal­ty or have not executed…

In the midst of National Pride Month com­mem­o­rat­ing the 50^th anniver­sary of the Stonewall Riots and the birth of the mod­ern LGBTQ rights move­ment, South Dakota has issued a death war­rant seek­ing to exe­cute a gay man whose death sen­tence was taint­ed by anti-gay bias. Charles Rhines (pic­tured) was sen­tenced to death by a jury that, accord­ing to juror affi­davits, was influ­enced by big­ot­ed stereo­types in reach­ing its deci­sion. On June 25, 2019, in response to a…

The Texas State Comptroller has denied com­pen­sa­tion to death-row exoneree Alfred Dewayne Brown (pic­tured), despite a for­mal court dec­la­ra­tion that he is ​“actu­al­ly inno­cent” of the mur­ders of a store clerk and a Houston police offi­cer that sent him to death row in 2005. Claiming uncer­tain­ty as to whether a Harris County judge had juris­dic­tion to declare Brown inno­cent of the mur­ders, comp­trol­ler Glenn Hegar on June 26, 2019…

In July 1976, false foren­sic tes­ti­mo­ny and an eye­wit­ness iden­ti­fi­ca­tion manip­u­lat­ed by police mis­con­duct sent Charles Ray Finch to North Carolina​’s death row. Forty-three years lat­er, he has become the 166^th per­son in the United States since 1973 to be exon­er­at­ed after hav­ing been wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death. On June 14, 2019, after a fed­er­al appeals court said Finch had proven his ​“actu­al inno­cence” and a fed­er­al dis­trict court had giv­en the…

The U.S. Supreme Court has ordered the unseal­ing of court doc­u­ments relat­ed to Alabama​’s May 30, 2019 exe­cu­tion of Christopher Price. On June 24, the Court grant­ed a motion filed by National Public Radio (NPR) and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP), to unseal all Supreme Court plead­ings in the case of Price v. Dunn, in which — based on redact­ed fil­ings — the Court per­mit­ted Price’s exe­cu­tion to…