Publications & Testimony

In his new book Surviving Execution: A Miscarriage of Justice and the Fight to End the Death Penalty, Sky News reporter Ian Woods tells the sto­ry of his rela­tion­ship with con­demned Oklahoma pris­on­er Richard Glossip, whose case gained promi­nence after the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to review his chal­lenge to the state’s lethal-injec­tion pro­ce­dures. Although Glossip’s case is most fre­quent­ly asso­ci­at­ed with the Supreme…

The Tennessee Supreme Court has denied a request from the state’s attor­ney gen­er­al to sched­ule eight exe­cu­tions before the June 1, 2018 expi­ra­tion date of Tennessee’s sup­ply of one of its exe­cu­tion drugs. Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery had filed the request on February 14, say­ing that sched­ul­ing exe­cu­tions ​“after June 1, 2018 is uncer­tain due to the ongo­ing dif­fi­cul­ty in obtain­ing the nec­es­sary lethal injec­tion chem­i­cals.” The court’s March 15,…

Ohio Governor John Kasich has com­mut­ed the death sen­tence of 52-year-old William Montgomery (pic­tured) to life with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole. Montgomery was sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed on April 11. The one-page procla­ma­tion grant­i­ng clemen­cy (pic­tured right, click to enlarge) did not spec­i­fy the grounds for Kasich’s action and was not accom­pa­nied by a news release or state­ment to the media. The order, issued March 26, stat­ed sim­ply, ​“after…

Americans of all ages, races, and polit­i­cal affil­i­a­tions over­whelm­ing­ly oppose the Trump admin­is­tra­tion plan to pur­sue cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment for drug over­dose deaths and believe it will have no effect on address­ing the opi­oid pub­lic health cri­sis, accord­ing to a March 16 – 21, 2018 nation­wide Quinnipiac University…

New court fil­ings argue that Columbus, Georgia pros­e­cu­tors had a pat­tern and prac­tice of sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly strik­ing black prospec­tive jurors because of their race, dis­crim­i­na­to­ri­ly empan­elling all- or near­ly-all-white juries to try black defen­dants on tri­al for their lives in cap­i­tal murder…

New court fil­ings argue that Columbus, Georgia pros­e­cu­tors had a pat­tern and prac­tice of sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly strik­ing black prospec­tive jurors because of their race, dis­crim­i­na­to­ri­ly empan­elling all- or near­ly-all-white juries to try black defen­dants on tri­al for their lives in cap­i­tal murder…

In a deci­sion that clar­i­fies the show­ing indi­gent pris­on­ers must make to obtain inves­tiga­tive ser­vices, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in favor of a Texas death-row pris­on­er who was denied fund­ing to chal­lenge the death sen­tence imposed in his case. In Ayestas v. Davis, the Court unan­i­mous­ly ruled that the Texas fed­er­al courts had applied an over­ly restric­tive legal stan­dard in deny­ing Carlos Ayestas (pic­tured) fund­ing to…

The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to review a sweep­ing chal­lenge to the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment brought by Arizona death-row pris­on­er Abel Hidalgo (pic­tured). After sched­ul­ing con­sid­er­a­tion of Hidalgo v. Arizona for ten sep­a­rate court con­fer­ences, the Court on March 19 unan­i­mous­ly denied Hidalgo’s peti­tion for writ of cer­tio­rari. In a state­ment issued in con­junc­tion with the Court’s rul­ing, however,…

Saying ​“the ulti­mate penal­ty has to be the death penal­ty,” President Donald Trump (pic­tured) announced on March 19 that he will direct the Department of Justice to seek the death penal­ty against drug traf­fick­ers. The pro­pos­al, includ­ed as part of the administration’s plan to address an opi­oid epi­dem­ic that has result­ed in as many as 64,000 over­dose deaths in 2016 alone, drew imme­di­ate crit­i­cism from pub­lic-health and crim­i­nal-jus­tice experts. ​“We can’t exe­cute our way out of…

Faced with doubts about pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct and the accu­ra­cy of foren­sic evi­dence, the Ohio Parole Board has rec­om­mend­ed that Governor John Kasich grant exec­u­tive clemen­cy to William T. Montgomery (pic­tured), sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed on April…