Publications & Testimony

A Colorado Springs jury reject­ed a death sen­tence for Glen Law Galloway (pic­tured), mark­ing the third high-pro­file case since 2015 in which Colorado jurors have select­ed a life sen­tence over death. The ver­dict brought to an end El Paso County​’s first cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tion in more than a decade, after a six-week tri­al in a court­room with a $50,000 makeover that includ­ed new audio and video tech­nol­o­gy and a remod­eled jury box enlarged to…

Eight days before the sched­uled July 11, 2018 exe­cu­tion of Scott Dozier, the Nevada Department of Corrections issued a new lethal-injec­tion pro­to­col, switch­ing the drugs the state intends to use in car­ry­ing out his exe­cu­tion. On July 3, the Department announced that it plans to use an untest­ed three-drug pro­to­col of the seda­tive mida­zo­lam, the opi­oid fen­tanyl, and the par­a­lyt­ic cisatracuri­um. The last-minute change prompt­ed an emer­gency fil­ing by the ACLU of…

Lindy Isonhood (click to enlarge pic­ture) served on the Mississippi jury that sen­tenced Bobby Wilcher to death in 1994. In a com­men­tary pub­lished on Medium, she writes that the deci­sion to con­demn Wilcher ​“continue[s] to haunt me today.” Isonhood — whose expe­ri­ence as a death-penal­ty juror is the sub­ject of a new doc­u­men­tary film, Lindy Lou, Juror Number 2—explains how lit­tle she and her fel­low jurors knew about the…

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…