Publications & Testimony

As human rights activists raise alarms about a new law in Brunei that would pun­ish homo­sex­u­al­i­ty by death by ston­ing, the U.S. Supreme Court con­sid­ers whether to hear a case in which jurors who exhib­it­ed anti-gay big­otry sen­tenced a gay defen­dant to death. Charles Rhines (pic­tured), a South Dakota death-row pris­on­er, is ask­ing the U.S. Supreme Court to review his case, after a low­er fed­er­al court denied him the oppor­tu­ni­ty to present juror…

In a divi­sive 5 – 4 deci­sion that exposed ran­cor and deep rifts among the jus­tices, the U.S. Supreme Court has giv­en Missouri the go-ahead to exe­cute a pris­on­er whose blood-filled tumors in his head, neck, and mouth could burst if the state car­ries out his exe­cu­tion by its cho­sen method. Russell Bucklew (pic­tured), who suf­fers from the rare med­ical con­di­tion, cav­ernous heman­gioma, had argued that Missouri’s lethal injec­tion procedures would…

Within two weeks of California Governor Gavin Newsom’s announce­ment that he was halt­ing exe­cu­tions in the state, the deci­sion to issue the mora­to­ri­um has been bol­stered from two unre­lat­ed and inde­pen­dent sources. A statewide poll under­way at the time of Newson’s mora­to­ri­um announce­ment and released by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) on March 27, 2019 found that by a record 2:1 mar­gin, Californians pre­ferred life without…

Forty-two years after he and his nephew were wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed of mur­der in Florida and he was sen­tenced to death, Clifford Williams, Jr. (pic­tured) has been exon­er­at­ed. Submitting a report from its Conviction Integrity Unit that found ​“no cred­i­ble evi­dence of guilt and … cred­i­ble evi­dence of inno­cence,” Duval County pros­e­cu­tors asked a Jacksonville tri­al court to dis­miss all charges against Williams, now 76 years old, and his nephew,…

Judges in Idaho and Nebraska have ordered prison offi­cials to release exe­cu­tion-relat­ed records the states had sought to keep secret. Finding that the Idaho Department of Correction (IDOC) act­ed friv­o­lous­ly and in bad faith in its pri­or response to a pub­lic records request, a state court judge ruled on March 21 that offi­cials at IDOC must release doc­u­ments relat­ed to the state’s death-penal­ty and exe­cu­tion process­es. In Nebraska, a fed­er­al district court…

The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles denied clemen­cy for Patrick Murphy (pic­tured) on March 27, 2019, mov­ing the state one step clos­er to exe­cut­ing him on March 28 for a mur­der he nei­ther com­mit­ted nor intend­ed to com­mit nor was present when it…

For decades, stud­ies have shown per­sis­tent racial dis­par­i­ties in the admin­is­tra­tion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Saying ​“death sen­tences are uneven­ly and unfair­ly applied based on race,” California Governor Gavin Newsom on March 13, 2019 imposed a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions in the state with the nation’s largest death row. Responding to the governor’s mora­to­ri­um In an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times, Stanford psychology professor…

Broward County, Florida pros­e­cu­tors moved to posthu­mous­ly exon­er­ate Ronald Stewart (pic­tured) of a rape and mur­der he did not com­mit. Stewart pled no con­test to the 1983 rape and mur­der of Regina Harrison after he was threat­ened with the death penal­ty. The actu­al killer, whose guilt has since been con­firmed by DNA test­ing, went on to mur­der at least two more women after…

Rocky Myers (pic­tured) may be inno­cent and intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled. His jury did not think he should be sen­tenced to die. Alabama intends to exe­cute him any­way. Myers’ case is rife with legal issues, but he received no fed­er­al court review because his appel­late lawyer aban­doned him with­out notice, let­ting the fil­ing dead­line for chal­leng­ing Myers’ con­vic­tion and death sen­tence expire. In a recent fea­ture sto­ry in The Nation, reporter Ashoka Mukpo tells the sto­ry of how the…

The U.S. Supreme Court seems poised to grant a new tri­al to Curtis Flowers (pic­tured), an African-American death-row pris­on­er tried six times for the same mur­ders by a white Mississippi pros­e­cu­tor who struck near­ly every black juror from ser­vice in each of the tri­als. During oral argu­ment in Flowers v. Mississippi on March 20, 2019, eight jus­tices expressed con­cern that Flowers had been denied a fair tri­al as a…