Publications & Testimony

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…

Twenty-two years after Walter Ogrod (pic­tured) was sen­tenced to death for a mur­der he insists he did not com­mit, a new Philadelphia District Attorney’s admin­is­tra­tion has dropped the office’s long-time oppo­si­tion to Ogrod’s request for DNA test­ing and has referred the case for review by a revi­tal­ized Conviction Integrity…

Less than three months after the U.S. Supreme Court direct­ed a fed­er­al appeals court to recon­sid­er whether Georgia death-row pris­on­er Keith Tharpe (pic­tured) is enti­tled to fed­er­al-court review of his claim that he was uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly sen­tenced to death because he is Black, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit has declined to review Tharpe’s appeal, say­ing he had nev­er pre­sent­ed the issue to the state…

In response to what it calls ​“a crit­i­cal and unmet need for edu­ca­tion and train­ing of both lawyers rep­re­sent­ing cap­i­tal pris­on­ers and deci­sion mak­ers who review peti­tions for clemen­cy,” the American Bar Association (ABA) has cre­at­ed a new web resource devot­ed to the clemen­cy process. The Capital Clemency Resource Initiative (CCRI) Clearinghouse — a joint project of the ABA Death Penalty Representation Project and Death Penalty Due Process Project — provides tools…

Race dis­crim­i­na­tion exists at every stage of the death-penal­ty process, says vet­er­an death-penal­ty and civ­il-rights lawyer Stephen B. Bright (pic­tured), but ​“the most per­va­sive dis­crim­i­na­tion that is going on is in jury selec­tion.” In a new Discussions With DPIC pod­cast, Bright — the for­mer President of the Southern Center for Human Rights who has argued jury dis­crim­i­na­tion cas­es three times in the U.S. Supreme Court — calls the ​“ram­pant” racial…

A Utah judge has exco­ri­at­ed the Utah Department of Corrections for prac­tices he called ​“sneaky” and ​“deceit­ful” and a state pros­e­cu­tor has dropped the death penal­ty after learn­ing that state prison offi­cials had with­held near­ly 1,600 pages of prison records from a defen­dant fac­ing cap­i­tal charges in a prison killing. Despite a court order to pro­duce all prison records, the depart­ment had failed to dis­close med­ical and men­tal health records detail­ing psychiatric medication…