Publications & Testimony

NEWS (2/​13/​20): The Florida Supreme Court issued opinions on February 13, 2020 denying relief to prisoners in three death penalty cases. The court upheld Anthony Mungin’s conviction and death sentence despite his assertion that prosecutors had unconstitutionally withheld exculpatory evidence and presented false testimony. Mungin had argued that prosecutors knowingly presented false testimony from an officer who claimed at trial that he had seen two spent shell casings in a stolen car linked to…

As state legislatures in Ohio and Washington contemplate the future of their death-penalty statutes, major newspapers in each of the states are advocating legislative repeal. On February 6, 2020, following a state senate vote to formalize the Washington Supreme Court’s judicial abolition of the state’s death penalty, The Seattle Times editorial board urged the state House of Representatives to complete the job. ​“The state Supreme Court has struck down Washington’s death-penalty law, but it…

NEWS (2/​12/​20): On February 12, 2020, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturned the death sentence imposed on Charles Brownlow, Jr. in Kaufman County in April 2016. The appeals court ruled that Brownlow’s jury had been prevented from properly evaluating his claim of intellectual disability. Brownlow had attempted to present evidence that he was ineligible for the death penalty because of intellectual disability. However, the trial judge instructed the jury that it was to evaluate his…

Andre Thomas (pictured) is a Texas death-row prisoner riven with schizophrenia so severe that, in separate incidents, he gouged out both of his eyes and ate one of them. The U.S. Court of Appeals heard oral argument on February 5, 2020, about whether his conviction and death sentence should be overturned because his lawyers failed to present evidence that he was incompetent to be tried, failed to present mitigating evidence of Thomas’ extensive history of mental illness, and failed to object to…

NEWS (2/​11/​20): The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania has stayed the execution of Jordan Clemons, which had been scheduled for March 13, 2020. As required by a law enacted by the Pennsylvania legislature in 1995, Clemons was the subject of a legally premature execution date, even though he had not yet had the opportunity to appeal his conviction and death sentence in state or federal post-conviction proceedings and was entitled to pursue those appeals. The…

Why is the death penalty pursued and imposed in some cases and not in others that, at first glance, seem facially indistinguishable? Surveying the academic literature, Daniel Medwed, the University Distinguished Professor of Law and Criminal Justice at Northeastern University School of Law, points to one of the factors that ​“seeps into charging and sentencing decisions in meaningful and disturbing ways“ — race: first, the race of the victim and then the race of the defendant. In a new article…

The last three men scheduled for execution in Georgia said they did not commit the killing and that DNA testing that was not available at the time of trial could prove it. In two of the cases, victim family members supported the request for testing. Prosecutors opposed the requests, and the courts refused to allow the testing. Two of the three men were executed, with doubts still swirling as to their guilt. Shawn Nolan, a federal defender who represented Georgia prisoner Ray ​“Jeff” Cromartie…

Three groups, representing prosecutors, the Catholic Church, and political conservatives, have filed briefs in the U.S. Supreme Court supporting the efforts of Florida death-row prisoner James Dailey (pictured) to obtain judicial review of his innocence claim. Dailey filed a petition for certiorari on January 10, 2020 asking the Supreme Court to hear his case, after the Florida courts refused to consider evidence that another man had confessed to the murder. Dailey, a veteran who served three…

NEWS (2/​6/​20): Texas executed Abel Ochoa on February 6, 2020. Ochoa unsuccessfully sought clemency on the grounds that he had shown great remorse for his crime and been rehabilitated. Ochoa had sought a stay of execution alleging that Texas unconstitutionally interfered in the clemency proceedings in his case by preventing him from submitting evidence in support of his clemency application. Although Texas routinely permits members of the media to film death row prisoners for their news stories…