Publications & Testimony

In his recent arti­cle, Reckoning with History: The lega­cy of lynch­ing in the West, his­to­ri­an Adam Sowards chal­lenges the view roman­ti­cized in American pop­u­lar mythol­o­gy that ​“fron­tier jus­tice” was a nec­es­sary com­mu­ni­ty response in ​“a vio­lent fron­tier where the need for jus­tice some­times pre­ced­ed an estab­lished legal sys­tem.” In fact, he says, although Westerners cre­at­ed an elab­o­rate rhetoric of a ​“Western vig­i­lante tra­di­tion” to dif­fer­en­ti­ate their posse killings…

The American Bar Association’s Criminal Justice Section has released its annu­al report on issues, trends, and sig­nif­i­cant changes in America’s crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem. The new pub­li­ca­tion, The State of Criminal Justice 2018, includes a chap­ter by Ronald J. Tabak, chair of the Death Penalty Committee of the ABA’s Section of Civil Rights and Social Justice, describ­ing sig­nif­i­cant death penal­ty cas­es and cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment devel­op­ments over the past…

An Arizona appeals court judge has urged the state’s supreme court to rule that the death penal­ty vio­lates Arizona’s state con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­hi­bi­tion against cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment. In an August 16, 2018 opin­ion dis­sent­ing from the Arizona Supreme Court’s affir­mance of death-row pris­on­er Jason Bush​’s con­vic­tion and sen­tence, Court of Appeals Judge Lawrence Winthrop (pic­tured) — sit­ting by des­ig­na­tion in the case because of the recusal of…

A Guantánamo mil­i­tary com­mis­sion judge has barred pros­e­cu­tors from using state­ments five accused 9/​11 plot­ters made to the FBI after they had been sub­ject­ed to years of tor­ture in CIA black sites. On August 17, 2018, the mil­i­tary judge, Army Colonel James L. Pohl (pic­tured), sup­pressed all use of the state­ments, rul­ing that restric­tions pros­e­cu­tors had placed on the abil­i­ty of defense coun­sel to inter­view wit­ness­es and inves­ti­gate the tor­ture made it…

When the U.S. Supreme Court banned the death penal­ty for juve­nile offend­ers in 2005 in Roper v. Simmons, Justice Anthony Kennedy’s opin­ion for the Court acknowl­edged the inher­ent arbi­trari­ness in select­ing an age cut­off. ​“The qual­i­ties that dis­tin­guish juve­niles from adults do not dis­ap­pear when an indi­vid­ual turns 18,” he wrote. ​“However, a line must be drawn.” New neu­ro­science research sug­gests that the age-18 line may be too low. The court’s opin­ion in…

Nineteen years after hav­ing been sen­tenced to death in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, and five years after win­ning a new tri­al, Ronald Champney entered a no-con­test plea to less­er charges in a plea deal that could soon set him free. Under the plea deal, which the court accept­ed on August 10, 2018, Champney agreed — with­out admit­ting guilt — that pros­e­cu­tors had suf­fi­cient evi­dence for a jury to con­vict him of third-degree mur­der and possessing…

Calling Oklahoma ​“the noto­ri­ous home of ​‘Hang ​’Em High’ exe­cu­tions,” con­ser­v­a­tive com­men­ta­tor and Fox News con­trib­u­tor Michelle Malkin (pic­tured) has urged the state to adopt sytemic reforms to address its ​“wretched record on wrongful…

On August 14, 2018, more than two decades after last putting a pris­on­er to death, Nebraska exe­cut­ed Carey Dean Moore (pic­tured). The exe­cu­tion — which used an untest­ed drug for­mu­la of diazepam (the seda­tive Valium), fen­tanyl cit­rate (an opi­oid painkiller), cisatracuri­um besy­late (a par­a­lyt­ic), and potas­si­um chlo­ride to stop the heart — took 23 min­utes. It was the state’s first exe­cu­tion ever by lethal…

The Florida Supreme Court has halt­ed the exe­cu­tion of Jose Antonio Jimenez (pic­tured), sched­uled for August 14,…

Over sharp dis­sents by jus­tices of the U.S. and Tennessee Supreme Courts and lin­ger­ing ques­tions about the pris­on­er’s his­to­ry of men­tal ill­ness and the effi­ca­cy of the state’s lethal-injec­tion pro­to­col, Tennessee exe­cut­ed Billy Ray Irick (pic­tured) on August 9. He was the first per­son exe­cut­ed by the state since 2009. Justice Sonia Sotomayor described the process as a ​“rush to exe­cute” and a descent into…