Publications & Testimony

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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,…

Year Death Sentences 1989 0 1990 0 1991 1 1992 0 1993 5 1994 0 1995 2 1996 4 1997 3 1998 5 1999 1 2000 2 2001 2 …

SOURCE: Federal Death Penalty Resource Counsel, Statutes; Bureau of Justice Statistics: Capital Punishment…

For Inclusion on DPI’s Innocence List: Defendants must have been con­vict­ed, sen­tenced to death and sub­se­quent­ly either- 1. Been acquit­ted of all charges relat­ed to the crime that placed them on death row, or 2. Had all charges relat­ed to the crime that placed them on death row dis­missed by the pros­e­cu­tion or the courts, or 3. Been grant­ed a com­plete par­don based on evi­dence of inno­cence. The list includes cas­es in which the release occurred 1973 or…

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…