Publications & Testimony

NEWS: JUNE 28—The New Mexico Supreme Court has over­turned the death sen­tences of the two pris­on­ers who had remained on the state’s death row after the leg­is­la­ture repealed the state’s death-penal­­ty statute in 2009. In 3 – 2 deci­sions in Fry v. Lopez and Allen v. Lemaster, the court found that the death sen­tences imposed on Robert Fry and Timothy Allen were dis­pro­por­tion­ate to​“oth­er equally…

Finding that a Mississippi pros­e­cu­tor had inten­tion­al­ly struck black jurors in an attempt to empan­el as white a jury as pos­si­ble, the United States Supreme Court has over­turned the con­vic­tion of death-row pris­on­er Curtis Giovanni Flowers. The Court’s 7 – 2 deci­sion on June 21, 2019, found that Mississippi’s Fifth Circuit Court District Attorney Doug Evans had under­tak­en extra­or­di­nary efforts to pre­vent African Americans…

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 Kentucky cap­i­tal defen­dant has moved to dis­miss all charges against him or to bar the death penal­ty in his case as a result of evi­dence that pros­e­cu­tors repeat­ed­ly eaves­dropped on priv­i­leged attor­ney-client tele­phone calls over the span of a year. Lawyers for James Mallory (pic­tured) have filed a motion to dis­miss the case for gross pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct, alleg­ing that pros­e­cu­tors lis­tened to record­ings of 120 prison phone…

A new study of the use of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in Los Angeles has con­clud­ed that, through­out the admin­is­tra­tion of District Attorney Jackie Lacey (pic­tured) the death penal­ty has​“discriminate[d] on the basis of race and against the poor.” The study, released June 18, 2019 by the ACLU, report­ed that under Lacey’s admin­is­tra­tion the Los Angeles death penal­ty has been imposed exclu­sive­ly against defen­dants of color,…

Arguing that Marion Wilson (pic­tured, cen­ter) did not kill any­one and did not intend that a killing occur, lawyers for the Georgia death-row pris­on­er have filed a clemen­cy peti­tion urg­ing the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles to com­mute Wilson’s sen­tence to life with­out parole. The Board, which declas­si­fied Wilson’s peti­tion allow­ing it to be released to the pub­lic, is sched­uled to hold a clemen­cy hearing on…

Citing​“egre­gious” mis­con­duct by state prison offi­cials in try­ing to evade a court order to pro­duce pub­lic records con­cern­ing its efforts to obtain lethal-injec­­tion drugs, an Indiana judge has direct­ed the state’s Department of Correction to pay more than a half mil­lion dol­lars in plain­tiffs’ attor­ney fees. On June 12, 2019, Marion County Circuit Judge Sheryl Lynch (pic­tured) award­ed $538,000 in attor­ney fees to plaintiffs…

NEWS (6/​20): Georgia’s exe­cu­tion of Marion Wilson was the 1,500^th exe­cu­tion in the United States and the 74^th in Georgia since the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of new death-penal­­ty laws in 1976. It was the 10^th exe­cu­tion in the U.S. in 2019 and the sec­ond in Georgia. 82% of all exe­cu­tions in the United States since the 1970s — and every exe­cu­tion so far in 2019 — have been in the South. See…

The Death Penalty Information Center has mod­ern­ized and expand­ed its award-win­n­ing web­site. On June 14, 2019, DPIC launched its redesigned web­site, cul­mi­nat­ing a two-year project that involved the trans­fer and reor­ga­ni­za­tion of infor­ma­tion on the Center’s more than 7,000 web­pages. Among the most notable addi­tions of the new web­site are 20 inter­ac­tive Tableau graph­ics, includ­ing States With and Without the Death Penalty, Prisoners on Death…

A North Carolina death-row pris­on­er is seek­ing a new tri­al based on alle­ga­tions that pros­e­cu­tors in his case used a train­ing doc­u­ment steeped in racist stereo­types to man­u­fac­ture pre­tex­tu­al rea­sons to exclude African Americans from serv­ing on his jury. In a June 4, 2019 court fil­ing in the appeal of Russell William Tucker (pic­tured), two nation­al experts say that the Forsyth County pros­e­cu­tors uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly exer­cised their discretionary juror…