Publications & Testimony

In a deci­sion most sig­nif­i­cant for what it declined to do, the U.S. Supreme Court has rebuffed efforts by state pros­e­cu­tors to fur­ther lim­it the scope of fed­er­al habeas cor­pus review of state crim­i­nal cas­es. In a 6 – 3 vote with Justice Breyer writ­ing for the major­i­ty, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Georgia death-row pris­on­er Marion Wilson (pic­tured), say­ing that he was enti­tled to fed­er­al-court review of the rea­sons why the Georgia state courts had…

At the urg­ing of the victim’s fam­i­ly, Rapid City, South Dakota pros­e­cu­tors have with­drawn their request for the death penal­ty against two mur­der defen­dants in the only cap­i­tal tri­als pend­ing in the state. On April 16, Pennington County State’s Attorney Mark Vargo with­drew the state’s notice of intent to seek the death penal­ty against Jonathon Klinetobein—charged with arrang­ing the May 2015 mur­der-for-hire of…

Death row is aging and increas­ing­ly infirm and, as a series of recent death war­rants sug­gest, that phe­nom­e­non is rais­ing legal, prac­ti­cal, and humanitarian…

In 1764, Italian philoso­pher Cesare Beccaria wrote the trea­tise, Dei delit­ti e delle pene, which author John Bessler (pic­tured) says spawned glob­al move­ments for fair and pro­por­tion­al pun­ish­ment and against prac­tices such as tor­ture and the death penal­ty. Beccaria’s book was a best-sell­er that swept across Europe and, trans­lat­ed into English in 1767 as An Essay on Crimes and Punishments, into the American colonies, shap­ing the beliefs of…

Mexican nation­al Vicente Figueroa Benavides (pic­tured), wrong­ly con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in Kern County, California for sup­pos­ed­ly rap­ing, sodom­iz­ing, and mur­der­ing his girlfriend’s 21-month-old daugh­ter, will soon be freed after near­ly 26 years on death row. He will be the 162^nd per­son and fifth for­eign nation­al exon­er­at­ed from a U.S. death row since…

As the sis­ter of a mur­der vic­tim and the wife of a death-row exoneree, LaShawn Ajamu has a unique per­spec­tive on what vic­tims’ fam­i­lies need and how they are treat­ed as crim­i­nal cas­es wend their way through the legal process. And the co-chair of the Murder Victims Families Support Project at Ohioans to Stop Executions strong­ly believes that the death penal­ty fails vic­tims’ fam­i­ly mem­bers. Ajamu, the wife of 150^th U.S. death-row exoneree Kwame Ajamu, spoke in…

Forty-four for­mer state and fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors and Department of Justice offi­cials — includ­ing for­mer U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey — have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to grant a new tri­al to Corey Williams (pic­tured), say­ing that Caddo Parish, Louisiana pros­e­cu­tors vio­lat­ed their duty to ensure that ​“jus­tice shall be done” by with­hold­ing excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence in a murder…

A frac­tured Washington Supreme Court unan­i­mous­ly found that a death-row prisoner’s con­sti­tu­tion­al rights had been vio­lat­ed under cir­cum­stances that had always before required over­turn­ing a con­vic­tion and grant­i­ng a new tri­al, but nev­er­the­less vot­ed to uphold his con­vic­tion and death sen­tence. In five opin­ions span­ning 254 pages pub­lished on April 12, 2018, the nine jus­tices agreed that Conner Schierman​’s (pic­tured) rights to be present and to a pub­lic trial…

Use of the death penal­ty declined world­wide in 2017, accord­ing to the Amnesty International’s annu­al glob­al report on capital…

Nine years after New Mexico prospec­tive­ly abol­ished cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, lawyers for the state’s two remain­ing death-row pris­on­ers argued to the New Mexico Supreme Court that the death penal­ty was uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly dis­pro­por­tion­ate pun­ish­ment as applied to Timothy Allen (pic­tured, left) and Robert Fry (pic­tured, right), and that they should not be…