Publications & Testimony

Thirty-seven years after his wrongful capital prosecution and conviction for a murder he did not commit, a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge has set Samuel Bonner free. Citing “gross prosecutorial misconduct” that he said “shocks the conscience,” Judge Daniel J. Lowenthal(pictured) on July 11, 2019 ordered Bonner released from California state prison. Bonner was capitally tried for an apartment robbery and murder in 1983 under a law that permitted defendants who neither committed a…

A more than $1.6 million price tag for prosecuting a Colorado death-penalty case that the victim’s family opposed and that resulted in a life sentence has caused some Coloradans to question whether capital prosecutions are worth the cost. On August 14, 2019, Miguel Contreras-Perez (pictured) was sentenced to life in prison after he pleaded guilty to the murder of a correctional officer and the attempted murder of another officer. The sentence came seven years after the murder and after Colorado…

In the latest episode of Discussions with DPIC, writer/director Chinonye Chukwu (pictured) speaks with DPIC Senior Director of Research and Special Projects Ngozi Ndulue about her award-winning new film Clemency. Chukwu discusses her inspiration for the story, the years-long process of research and immersion that helped her shape the narrative, and her hopes for how this film will be received. Clemency stars Alfre Woodard as death-row prison warden Bernadine Williams and Aldis Hodge as…

NEWS — August 30: A Tennessee trial judge has approved a plea deal to vacate the death sentence of Abu-Ali Abdur’Rahman as a result of prosecutorial misconduct. Abdur’Rahman, who was scheduled to be executed next year, argued that prosecutor John Zimmerman excluded potential jurors based on race during Abdur’Rahman’s 1987 capital trial. The current district attorney’s office agreed with Abdur’Rahman that his trial was infected by “overt racial bias” and that as a result his sentence should be…

When Oregon’s legislators passed a new law limiting the scope of the state’s death penalty, the sponsors of the measure offered assurances that it would not apply retroactively to prisoners on the state’s death row. Now, a new legal opinion by the Oregon Department of Justice has raised questions as to how retroactive “not retroactive” actually is and whether the new law applies to legal proceedings involving current death-row prisoners whose convictions or death sentences may later be found to…

The turmoil surrounding Ohio’s death penalty continued to grow as public health experts criticized a legislator’s suggestion that the state use seized drugs to carry out executions and the Speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives, Larry Householder (pictured), expressed growing doubts about capital punishment itself. Governor Mike DeWine joined critics of the fentanyl proposal, declaring that it was “not an option” for resuming executions in the state. The future of Ohio’s execution…

In a case that raises concerns about procedural impediments that prevent enforcement of constitutional rights, Florida is preparing to execute a man whose claim of intellectual disability has never been reviewed by the state or federal courts. [UPDATE: Florida executed Gary Ray Bowles on August 22, 2019.] In 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Atkins v. Virginia that the use of the death penalty against individuals with intellectual disability constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, in…

With serious doubts swirling as to virtually every piece of forensic evidence in his case, Texas plans to execute Larry Swearingen — who has always maintained his innocence in the murder of Melissa Trotter — on August 21, 2019. His attorneys say his conviction is grounded in junk science that has been repudiated by numerous forensic experts, including false testimony regarding pantyhose used to strangle Trotter, blood found under her fingernails, and the time of her death. Even after the Texas…

Leaders from two of the three congregations affected by the October 27, 2018 shootings at the Tree of Life synagogue (pictured) in Pittsburgh are asking the federal government not to seek a death sentence for the accused white supremacist murderer. Rabbi Jonathan Perlman of New Light Congregation and President Donna Coufal of Dor Hadash Congregation wrote letters to Attorney General William Barr, requesting that Robert Bowers, charged with killing 11 Jewish worshippers in Pittsburgh, receive a…

The U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Reform announced on August 14, 2019 that it has launched an investigation into the Department of Justice’s plan to restart federal executions using the drug pentobarbital. Citing concerns about the source of drugs the Administration intends to use in five executions it has scheduled in December 2019 and January 2020, the Oversight Committee’s Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties has sought documents and information from…