Publications & Testimony

The already chaot­ic Guantánamo death-penal­ty tri­al of Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, accused of orches­trat­ing the October 2000 attack on the U.S. Navy destroy­er USS Cole, hit anoth­er snag as the most recent judge assigned to pre­side over the con­tro­ver­sial pro­ceed­ings will be leav­ing the mil­i­tary and quit­ting the case. In a January 4, 2019 appel­late plead­ing recent­ly obtained by the McClatchy News Service, pros­e­cu­tors advised the U.S. Court of…

Over a sharp dis­sent by three jus­tices, the United States Supreme Court has let stand the death sen­tence imposed on a Georgia pris­on­er who was suf­fer­ing from demen­tia, brain dam­age, and bor­der­line intel­lec­tu­al func­tion­ing, but whose tri­al lawyer failed to present any mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence. On January 7, 2019, the Supreme Court denied the peti­tion for writ of cer­tio­rari filed on behalf of death-row pris­on­er Donnie Cleveland Lance seek­ing the…

The U.S. Supreme Court has ordered the Virginia Supreme Court to address a claim brought by for­mer death-row pris­on­er Justin Wolfe (pic­tured) that pros­e­cu­tors had engaged in uncon­sti­tu­tion­al vin­dic­tive pros­e­cu­tion against him after fed­er­al courts had found that his con­vic­tion and death sen­tence had been obtained through egre­gious pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct. The Virginia Supreme Court had ruled that Wolfe’s guilty plea to the enhanced charges…

Nevada death-row pris­on­er Scott Dozier (pic­tured), who unsuc­cess­ful­ly tried to force the state to exe­cute him, was found dead in his prison cell on January 5, 2019 of an appar­ent sui­cide. News reports indi­cat­ed that Dozier had hanged him­self. Dozier had told the court and sev­er­al reporters that he would rather die than spend life in prison and had attempt­ed to speed up his exe­cu­tion by drop­ping his appeals. However, his pri­or sui­cide attempt raised questions…

As he pre­pared for retire­ment, the long-time direc­tor of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) said he does not sup­port the death penal­ty and believes the pun­ish­ment is on its way out in Georgia and across the coun­try. In a tele­vi­sion inter­view on his final day of work as GBI direc­tor, Vernon Keenan (pic­tured) told WXIA-TV, Atlanta’s NBC tele­vi­sion affil­i­ate, that he has ​“nev­er believed in the death penal­ty” and “[t]he day will come when we won’t have the…

Nations that abol­ish the death penal­ty then tend to see their mur­der rates decline, accord­ing to a December 2018 report by the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center, a Washington, DC-based orga­ni­za­tion that pro­motes human rights and democ­ra­cy in Iran. The report exam­ined mur­der rates in 11 coun­tries that have abol­ished cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, find­ing that ten of those coun­tries expe­ri­enced a decline in mur­der rates in the decade fol­low­ing abo­li­tion. Countries were includ­ed if they met the following…

The Florida Supreme Court issued rul­ings in thir­teen death penal­ty cas­es in the last two weeks of 2018, uphold­ing con­vic­tions and death sen­tences in ten, revers­ing one death sen­tence, remand­ing one case for a new hear­ing on intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty, and allow­ing lim­it­ed DNA test­ing in anoth­er case. The most notable of the deci­sions came in the cas­es of Gerald Murray (pic­tured left) and Steven Taylor (pic­tured, right), decid­ed on December 20,…