Publications & Testimony

A Louisiana prisoner wrongfully prosecuted for capital murder has agreed to a plea deal that secures his freedom after spending 42 years in prison for a crime he says he did not commit. With the assistance of the Innocence Project New Orleans, Elvis Brooks (pictured) succeeded in overturning his 1997 conviction and agreed to plead guilty to lesser charges in exchange for his release on October 15, 2019. Taking the plea was “something I [didn’t] want to do, but I wanted my freedom.” Brooks…

A federal appeals court has overturned the death sentences imposed on two brain damaged death-row prisoners in cases separately sent back for further review by the U.S. Supreme Court. On October 15, 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11^th Circuit ordered a new sentencing hearing for Alabama death-row prisoner James McWilliams. Two days later, another three-judge panel of the 11^th Circuit granted a new penalty hearing to Georgia death-row prisoner Lawrence Jefferson. Both men had been…

Under court order, Alabama has released for the first time a copy of the state’s previously confidential execution protocol. The 17-page document — filed on October 16, 2019 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama federal court —purports to detail “the responsibilities and procedures for the reception of a condemned inmate, for confinement, and for execution and day of execution preparation” as of April 2019. The heavily redacted protocol identifies the drugs used by the…

NEWS — October 25: At the United Nations in New York, Agnès Callamard, the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, called on the world body to adopt universal standards for the provision of consular support for imprisoned foreign nationals, particularly those who face capital charges. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that legal claims to enforce the protections guaranteed by the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations — the treaty that affords Americans charged with…

Lawyers for Oklahoma death-row prisoner Julius Jones (pictured) have petitioned the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board for clemency, arguing that Jones was wrongly convicted and that his trial was tainted by racial bias. The petition, filed on October 15, 2019, has drawn support from a diverse range of civic, civil rights, and faith leaders and criminal justice experts. Jones, who is black, was convicted and sentenced to death by a nearly all-white jury for the 1999 killing of a white…

The American Bar Association has urged the Nevada Supreme Court to prohibit the use of the death penalty against people who are severely mentally ill. In a friend-of-the-court brief filed October 3, 2019 in the case of death-row prisoner Siaosi Vanisi, the ABA argued that imposing the death penalty on people with severe mental illness serves no legitimate penological purpose and asked the court to “categorically prohibit the execution of individuals who were suffering from severe mental illness…

Facing a potential backlash from major aid donors, Uganda’s president has attempted to distance his government from legislative efforts to reintroduce a bill that would make consensual same-sex acts punishable by the death penalty and criminalize “promotion and recruitment” of homosexuality. The so-called “Kill the Gays” bill previously promoted by government officials would greatly expand the punishment of homosexuality under Ugandan law. The proposed bill is a more draconian version of a law…

The case of Texas death-row prisoner Rodney Reed (pictured, right), who is facing execution in Texas on November 20, 2019 despite powerful evidence of innocence, is attracting national attention from unusual sources. On October 10 and 11, the syndicated television show Dr. Phil devoted two episodes to an investigation of the innocence claims in Reed’s case. “I don’t think it’s a question of whether he’s guilty or not guilty,” host Dr. Phil McGraw (pictured, left) said. “I think the question…

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has granted a stay of execution for federal death row prisoner Lezmond Mitchell to prevent the U.S. government from executing him before the court can review an on-going appeal concerning possible anti-Native American bias in his case. Mitchell, who was scheduled to be executed on December 11, 2019, is a member of the Navajo Nation and the only Native American on federal death row. His case is one of several in the past year…

NEWS — October 18: The Nebraska Supreme Court has dismissed a challenge to the state’s execution protocol brought by the Rev. Stephen C. Griffith and State Senator Ernie Chambers, who had alleged that the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services had failed to comply with statutorily and constitutionally required procedures in adopting the protocol. The court did not uphold the protocol, but ruled that Griffith and Chambers lacked standing to challenge it because they “do not face death…