Publications & Testimony

Items: 1701 — 1710

Jan 02, 2019

Disparate Death-Penalty Rulings in Same Florida Murder Case Raise Arbitrariness Concerns

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,…

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Jan 01, 2019

Outcomes of Death Warrants in 2018

Executions and Stays 2018 62 exe­cu­tion dates were sched­uled in 11 states in 2018. There were 25 exe­cu­tions car­ried out in 8 states. Courts stayed 17 exe­cu­tions. 3 exe­cu­tions were halt­ed by com­mu­ta­tion. Governors issued reprieves that halt­ed 3 oth­er exe­cu­tions. 1 failed exe­cu­tion was halt­ed when exe­cu­tion per­son­nel were unable to set an IV line. 13 executions were…

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Jan 01, 2019

Federal Laws Providing for the Death Penalty

8 U.S.C. § 1342(B)(iv) Bringing in and har­bor­ing cer­tain aliens result­ing in death. 18 U.S.C. §§ 32 – 34 Destruction of air­craft, motor vehi­cles, or relat­ed facil­i­ties result­ing in death. 18 U.S.C. § 36 Murder com­mit­ted dur­ing a drug-relat­ed dri­ve-by shoot­ing. 18 U.S.C. §…

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Dec 31, 2018

Justice Anthony Kennedy’s Death Penalty Jurisprudence

The retire­ment of Justice Anthony Kennedy from the U.S. Supreme Court after the 2017 – 2018 court term and his replace­ment with Justice Brett Kavanaugh marked a poten­tial­ly piv­otal change in the con­sti­tu­tion of the Court with respect to death-penalty…

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Dec 31, 2018

Stays of Execution in 2018

^ On September 1, 2017, Ohio’s Governor Kasich issued a state­ment and an updat­ed exe­cu­tion sched­ule, which changed the exe­cu­tion dates for 19 of 26 con­demned pris­on­ers who had sched­uled dates between September 2017 and September 2020. The exe­cu­tion sched­ule for these 26 pris­on­ers now extends through April…

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Dec 28, 2018

Record Lows Set Across the U.S. For Death Sentences Imposed in 2018

2018 was a record-low year for death-penal­ty usage in the United States, as eigh­teen death-penal­ty states set or matched records for the fewest new death sen­tences imposed in the mod­ern his­to­ry of U.S. cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. (Click here to enlarge map.) Thirty-five U.S. states — includ­ing six­teen that autho­rized cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in 2018 — did not impose any death sen­tences in 2018, while California and Pennsylvania, which col­lec­tive­ly account for…

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Dec 27, 2018

National Think Tank Calls on Conservatives to Reject Death Penalty

The R Street Institute, a Washington-based pol­i­cy think tank, has joined the grow­ing num­ber of con­ser­v­a­tive voic­es advo­cat­ing for death-penal­ty abo­li­tion. In a com­men­tary in the November/​December 2018 issue of The American Conservative, the institute’s crim­i­nal jus­tice and civ­il lib­er­ties pol­i­cy direc­tor Arthur Rizer (pic­tured, left) and its Southeast region direc­tor Marc Hyden (pic­tured, right) argue that ​“the…

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Dec 26, 2018

After Mid-Term Elections, Legislators Poised to Renew Efforts at Death-Penalty Abolition in 2019

Empowered by the results of the November 2018 mid-term elec­tions, leg­is­la­tures in at least four states are poised to renew efforts to repeal their states’ death-penal­ty statutes or dras­ti­cal­ly reduce the cir­cum­stances in which cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment is avail­able. State leg­isla­tive and guber­na­to­r­i­al elec­tions in Colorado, Nevada, New Hampshire, and Oregon…

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