Publications & Testimony

As its 2017 – 2018 term came to a close, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review two Mississippi cas­es that pre­sent­ed sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment as imple­ment­ed in that state and across the coun­try. Over the dis­sent of Justice Stephen Breyer (pic­tured), who renewed his call for the Court to review the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the death penal­ty as a whole, the Court on June 29 denied cer­tio­rari in the cas­es of Timothy Evans and…

Two men charged with killing Philadelphia Police Sgt. Robert Wilson III have been sen­tenced to life with­out pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole, plus an addi­tion­al term of 50 to 100 years, as pros­e­cu­tors in one of the nation’s largest death-penal­ty coun­ties agreed not to seek the death penal­ty in exchange for the defen­dants’ guilty pleas. Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner (pic­tured) appeared in court on June 25 to personally…

Justice Anthony Kennedy (pic­tured) announced on June 27, 2018, that he will retire from the U.S. Supreme Court. During Kennedy’s thir­ty years on the Court, he became known as a swing vote, sid­ing with both the con­ser­v­a­tive and lib­er­al wings of the Court. His role as the Court’s swing vote extend­ed to some cru­cial death-penal­ty cas­es, includ­ing Roper v. Simmons (2005), in which the jus­tices struck down the death penal­ty for juve­nile offend­ers under…

Tennessee could save an esti­mat­ed $1.4 – 1.89 mil­lion per year by adopt­ing a ban on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment for defen­dants with severe men­tal ill­ness, accord­ing to a new report by the American Bar Association Death Penalty Due Process Review Project. The report said a severe men­tal ill­ness death-penal­ty exclu­sion ​“could result in cost sav­ings [because] a sub­set of indi­vid­u­als who cur­rent­ly could face expen­sive cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tions and decades of appeals would become…

Pennsylvania​’s death-penal­ty sys­tem is seri­ous­ly flawed and in need of major reform, accord­ing to a report released June 25, 2018, by the Pennsylvania Task Force and Advisory Committee on Capital Punishment. The bipar­ti­san task force and advi­so­ry com­mit­tee — which con­sist­ed of leg­is­la­tors, pros­e­cu­tors, defense attor­neys, police chiefs, judges, and vic­tims’ advo­cates — began work in 2012 and exam­ined 17 issues relat­ed to the Commonwealth’s death penal­ty. Their years-long…

A Board of Inquiry appoint­ed by for­mer Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens will con­vene on August 22, 2018 to con­sid­er the fate of Marcellus Williams (pic­tured), one year to the day after Williams received a last-minute reprieve from exe­cu­tion based on evi­dence of his…

New Hampshire Governor Christopher Sununu (pic­tured) has vetoed a bill that would have abol­ished the state’s death penal­ty. Surrounded by law enforce­ment offi­cers as he vetoed the bill on June 21, 2018, Sununu said, “[w]hile I very much respect the argu­ments made by pro­po­nents of this bill, I stand with crime vic­tims, mem­bers of the law enforce­ment com­mu­ni­ty and advo­cates for jus­tice in oppos­ing it. New Hampshire does not take the death penal­ty light­ly and we…

Harvard Law Professor Carol Steiker (pic­tured), co-author of the high­ly acclaimed book, Courting Death: The Supreme Court and Capital Punishment, joins DPIC’s Robin Konrad for a provoca­tive dis­cus­sion of the past and future of America’s death penal­ty. In the lat­est episode of Discussions with DPIC, Professor Steiker — who served as a clerk for Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall — takes us inside the walls of the Court for insights on the jus­tices’ approach­es to…

Michael Wearry, a Louisiana pris­on­er whose con­vic­tion and death sen­tence were over­turned by the U.S Supreme Court in 2016 because pros­e­cu­tors with­held excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence, has filed suit against Livingston Parish District Attorney Scott Perriloux (pic­tured) and for­mer Sheriff’s Deputy Marlon Kearney Foster based upon new evi­dence that they delib­er­ate­ly fab­ri­cat­ed tes­ti­mo­ny against him. Wearry’s complaint…

The Florida Supreme Court has over­turned the death sen­tence imposed on Eric Kurt Patrick (pic­tured) and ordered the low­er court to con­duct a hear­ing on the fail­ure of Patrick’s lawyer to ade­quate­ly ques­tion a juror who admit­ted his belief that gay peo­ple are ​“moral­ly depraved” might affect his judg­ment of guilt or inno­cence. Patrick was con­vict­ed of the 2005 mur­der of Steven Schumacher, a gay man who had brought Patrick home after meet­ing him in a park, and…