Publications & Testimony

Charles Wright (pic­tured), a pris­on­er on Tennessee’s death row, may die of can­cer before the October 10, 2019 exe­cu­tion date that the state has set for him. His attor­neys and sup­port­ers, includ­ing a for­mer U.S. Congressman, are seek­ing clemen­cy so Wright can spend his final days with his fam­i­ly. Wright has prostate can­cer that has spread to his bones, and was recent­ly moved from Tennessee’s death-row facil­i­ty to a prison infir­mary. He is ask­ing the governor…

The United States Supreme Court has declined to review chal­lenges brought by two Oklahoma death-row pris­on­ers who alleged that their death sen­tences were the uncon­sti­tu­tion­al prod­uct of racial bias. Julius Jones and Tremane Wood had sought to over­turn their death sen­tences based on the find­ings of a 2017 study that showed sig­nif­i­cant racial dis­par­i­ties in Oklahoma’s death sen­tenc­ing prac­tices. On January 22, 2019, the Court denied the…

A bipar­ti­san coali­tion of Wyoming leg­is­la­tors has intro­duced a bill to abol­ish the state’s death penal­ty. On January 15, 2019, Cheyenne Republican State Representative Jared Olsen (pic­tured, left) and Republican State Senator Brian Boner (pic­tured, right), intro­duced HB145, which would repeal the death penal­ty and replace it with a judi­cial­ly imposed sen­tence of life with­out parole or life impris­on­ment. The bill, co-spon­sored by six­teen other…

By a vote of 23 – 17, the Virginia State Senate has approved a bill that, if enact­ed, would ban cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment for defen­dants with severe men­tal ill­ness. With the sup­port of all nine­teen Democratic sen­a­tors and four Republicans, the bill passed the GOP-con­trolled Senate on January 17, 2019. It now moves on to the Commonwealth’s House of Delegates, which is com­prised of 51 Republicans and 49…

A Georgia judge has grant­ed a new tri­al to Johnny Lee Gates (pic­tured recent­ly, right, and at the time of tri­al, left) based on new evi­dence that excludes him as the source of DNA on imple­ments used by the killer dur­ing the 1976 rape and mur­der for which Gates was sen­tenced to death. DNA test­ing dis­closed that Gates’s DNA was not found on a neck­tie and the bathrobe belt the pros­e­cu­tion said were used by the killer to bind Kathrina Wright, the 19-year-old wife…

Retiring Texas Court of Criminal Appeals judge and for­mer pros­e­cu­tor Elsa Alcala now believes that the death penal­ty is unre­li­ably and dis­crim­i­na­to­ri­ly applied in the nation’s most aggres­sive cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment state. In a new Houston Chronicle ​“Behind the Walls” pod­cast, Judge Alcala – who calls her­self ​“a Republican hang­ing on by a thread” – told reporter Keri Blakinger, ​“I think we know enough right now to even call for a…

Executions have soared in Saudi Arabia amid widen­ing pur­suit of polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed death sen­tences, mass death penal­ty tri­als, and use of the death penal­ty against female activists, accord­ing to a European-based Saudi human rights orga­ni­za­tion. In its 2018 Death Penalty Report: Saudi Arabia’s False Promise, issued January 16, 2019, the European Saudi Organization for Human Rights (ESOHR) said Saudi Arabia con­duct­ed at least 149 exe­cu­tions in 2018,…

The U.S. Supreme Court has reversed a Kentucky state court rul­ing that would have per­mit­ted the Commonwealth to exe­cute death-row pris­on­er Larry Lamont White (pic­tured) with­out an evi­den­tiary hear­ing on his claim that he is intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled. In a one-para­graph order issued on January 15, 2019, the Court grant­ed White’s peti­tion for review, vacat­ed the Kentucky Supreme Court​’s denial of his death-penal­ty appeal, and direct­ed the state…

On January 11, 2019, the Florida Clemency Board unan­i­mous­ly grant­ed posthu­mous par­dons to the ​“Groveland Four,” four young African-American men false­ly accused of rap­ing a young white woman in Lake County, Florida in 1949. During the racist hys­te­ria fol­low­ing the accu­sa­tion, white mobs burned down black res­i­dences, a mas­sive white posse lynched a black sus­pect, all-white juries con­demned two inno­cent men to death and an…

[UPDATE: The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals issued a stay of exe­cu­tion to Blaine Milam on January 14, 2019] As Texas pre­pares to exe­cute Blaine Milam (pic­tured) on January 15, 2019, Milam’s lawyers say his con­vic­tion and sen­tence rest on dis­cred­it­ed bite-mark tes­ti­mo­ny and have asked for the exe­cu­tion to be…