Publications & Testimony

For the sec­ond time in as many years, New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu (pic­tured, left) has vetoed a bill to repeal the state’s death penal­ty. Sununu’s action on May 3, 2019 sets the stage for an antic­i­pat­ed attempt lat­er in the leg­isla­tive ses­sion to over­ride the Governor’s veto. A two-thirds vote in each house is…

Tennessee exe­cut­ed Sedley Alley in 2006 for the bru­tal rape and mur­der of Marine Lance Corporal Suzanne Collins, after hav­ing denied him DNA test­ing that his lawyers believed could have estab­lished his inno­cence. Now, after new evi­dence sug­gests that anoth­er man may have com­mit­ted the mur­der, the Innocence Project has filed a peti­tion in Shelby County (Memphis) Criminal Court on behalf of Alley’s estate…

Christian church lead­ers from Catholic and Protestant denom­i­na­tions across Louisiana have called upon state law­mak­ers to pass leg­is­la­tion to end the death penal­ty in the Bayou State. On April 25, 2019, the Louisiana Interchurch Conference and two dozen faith rep­re­sen­ta­tives held a press con­fer­ence on the steps of the state capi­tol in Baton Rouge advo­cat­ing for leg­is­la­tion to abol­ish the state’s cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment law and pledg­ing their sup­port for as long as it…

A fed­er­al dis­trict court has over­turned the con­vic­tion of Genesis Hill (pic­tured), who was sen­tenced to death in Ohio in 1991 for the death of his six-month-old daugh­ter, Domika, based upon a ques­tion­able shak­en-baby diag­no­sis. On April 24, 2019, Chief Judge Edmund A. Sargus, Jr. of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio found that Ohio pros­e­cu­tors had uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly with­held excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence that called…

One month into California’s mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions, the his­toric action by Governor Gavin Newsom (pic­tured) is draw­ing high praise from exonerees, mixed reviews from vic­tims’ fam­i­lies, and unusu­al­ly per­son­al con­dem­na­tion from political…

Arguing that a brain-dam­aged woman fac­ing the death penal­ty for the starv­ing death of her young daugh­ter​“was inca­pable of rep­re­sent­ing her­self,” lawyers from the Georgia Office of the Capital Defender have asked that they be reap­point­ed as her coun­sel if the case advances to the penal­­ty-phase of her trial for…

In a 5 – 4 deci­sion, the Supreme Court denied Russell Bucklew’s claim that Missouri’s lethal injec­tion pro­ce­dures would sub­ject him to cruel and…

In an action con­demned by the United Nations and human rights groups as a fla­grant vio­la­tion of inter­na­tion­al law, Saudi Arabia behead­ed 37 peo­ple, includ­ing juve­nile offend­ers, in six sep­a­rate loca­tions on April 23, 2019. It was the nation’s largest mass exe­cu­tion since January 2016. Most of the peo­ple exe­cut­ed were mem­bers of the Shi’a Muslim minor­i­ty com­mu­ni­ty. The human rights advo­cates blast­ed Saudi offi­cials for targeting politically…

Texas has exe­cut­ed John William King (pic­tured), one of three men con­vict­ed of the bru­tal lynch­ing of James Byrd, Jr., after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to inter­vene in his case. King’s lawyers had asked the Court to grant a stay of his sched­uled April 24, 2019 exe­cu­tion after a divid­ed Texas Court of Criminal Appeals vot­ed 5 – 4 on April 22 to per­mit the exe­cu­tion to pro­ceed. King, an avowed white suprema­cist, had…

At least five peo­ple were exon­er­at­ed in 2018 after hav­ing been wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed in cas­es that involved the mis­use or threat­ened use of the death penal­ty, a DPIC analy­sis of data accom­pa­ny­ing a new report by the National Registry of Exonerations has shown. The National Registry’s annu­al report on wrong­ful con­vic­tions, Exonerations in 2018, record­ed a record 151 new exon­er­a­tions across the United States in 2018, includ­ing 68 exon­er­a­tions resulting from…