Publications & Testimony

A divid­ed Missouri Supreme Court has upheld the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the state’s death-penal­ty statute against a chal­lenge to its require­ment that the tri­al judge decide a cap­i­tal defendant’s sen­tence in cas­es of a penal­ty-phase hung jury. In a 4 – 3 deci­sion issued on July 16, 2019, the court reject­ed a claim brought by Craig Wood (pic­tured) that hung-jury judi­cial sen­tenc­ing vio­lat­ed his Sixth Amendment right to tri­al by jury. A 5 – 2 major­i­ty of the court also denied relief on Wood’s claims…

In a high­ly pub­li­cized death-penal­ty tri­al, Brendt Christensen (pic­tured) was sen­tenced to life in prison with­out parole on July 18, 2019 for the rape and mur­der of Chinese grad­u­ate stu­dent Yingying Zhang when a fed­er­al jury in Peoria, Illinois did not reach a unan­i­mous deci­sion on what sen­tence was appro­pri­ate for his crime. The tri­al attract­ed broad nation­al and inter­na­tion­al atten­tion as a result of the sen­sa­tion­al cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the mur­der, Ms. Zhang’s sta­tus as an…

NEWS: July 23—The U.S. Court of Appeals has ruled that Wyoming pros­e­cu­tors may seek the death penal­ty in resen­tenc­ing pro­ceed­ings against 74-year-old Dale Wayne Eaton. Eaton had been the only per­son on Wyoming’s death row between 2004, when he was sen­tenced to death for a 1988 killing, and 2014, when a fed­er­al dis­trict court reversed his death sen­tence for inef­fec­tive penal­ty-phase rep­re­sen­ta­tion. At that time, Eaton sought to bar a capital resentencing…

Calling Governor Gavin Newsom​’s mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions a ​“par­a­digm shift” in the death-penal­ty land­scape, a defen­dant fac­ing the death penal­ty in Los Angeles has peti­tioned the California Supreme Court to halt cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tions in the state. On July 1, 2019, lawyers for Cleamon Johnson—whose death penal­ty tri­al is sched­uled to begin in January 2020 — have filed a pre­tri­al peti­tion for review, argu­ing that capital juries…

Citing race dis­par­i­ties, inef­fec­tive rep­re­sen­ta­tion by court-appoint­ed lawyers, and arbi­trary case out­comes, the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office has asked the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to strike down the state’s death penal­ty. In a brief filed on July 15, 2019 in the con­sol­i­dat­ed appeals of Philadelphia death-row pris­on­er Jermont Cox and Northumberland County​’s Kevin Marinelli, the District…

Retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, who described his decid­ing vote to uphold the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in 1976 as the one court vote he most regret­ted, has died. He was 99 years old. A media advi­so­ry released by the Supreme Court on July 16, 2019, said that Stevens died of com­pli­ca­tions from a stroke he suf­fered the day before. ​“He brought to our bench an inim­itable blend of kind­ness, humil­i­ty, wis­dom, and inde­pen­dence,” Chief Justice John…

Amidst an ongo­ing law­suit chal­leng­ing the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of South Carolina​’s death-row con­di­tions, the state has moved its death-row pris­on­ers to a dif­fer­ent prison. On July 11, 2019, the South Carolina Department of Corrections (SCDOC) moved the state’s 38 death-row pris­on­ers from Kirkland Correctional Institution to the near­by Broad River Correctional Institution (pic­tured), into a facil­i­ty that had orig­i­nal­ly been built to house death-row pris­on­ers in 1988. In a press…

Rick Unklesbay served as a pros­e­cu­tor in the Pima County Attorney’s Office in Arizona for near­ly four decades, pros­e­cut­ing more than 100 homi­cides, includ­ing six­teen in which death sen­tences were imposed. He put Don Miller on death row and, in November 2000, watched as Arizona put Miller to death. In Arbitrary Death: A Prosecutor’s Perspective on the Death Penalty, Unklesbay tells…

NEWS: July 19—The Nebraska Supreme Court has upheld the con­vic­tions and death sen­tences in the case of Nikko Jenkins, who was con­vict­ed of four mur­ders com­mit­ted in Omaha in August 2013. The court reject­ed the chal­lenge that Jenkins — who has attempt­ed sui­cide on mul­ti­ple occa­sions — should not be sub­ject to the death penal­ty because of mental…

In the span of two weeks, juries in four unre­lat­ed cas­es in which Florida pros­e­cu­tors had sought the death penal­ty have instead returned life sen­tences. The cas­es — which were con­sid­ered prob­a­ble death ver­dicts if judges were per­mit­ted to impose sen­tence — illus­trate the impact of the changes in Florida law in 2016 and 2017 ban­ning judi­cial death sen­tences based on non-unan­i­mous jury rec­om­men­da­tions for death. Between June 27, 2019 and July 11, 2019, jurors in the cases of…