Publications & Testimony

Finding that an Alabama pros­e­cu­tor with a his­to­ry of mis­con­duct had ​“inten­tion­al­ly” made improp­er com­ments in the cap­i­tal tri­al of Artez Hammonds (pic­tured) ​“in fla­grant vio­la­tion” of a pre-tri­al order warn­ing him not to do so, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit nev­er­the­less denied Hammonds’s appeal and per­mit­ted his con­vic­tion and death sen­tence to stand. While the court not­ed that the pros­e­cu­tor, District Attorney Douglas Valeska ​“had been…

Appeals courts in Mississippi and Pennsylvania have grant­ed new tri­als to two men who have long assert­ed their inno­cence of charges that had sent them to their states’ death…

A new study of more than two decades of mur­ders in Oklahoma has found that defen­dants charged with killing a white woman have odds of being sen­tenced to death in the Sooner State that are near­ly ten times greater than if they had been charged with killing a man who is a racial…

“The death penal­ty is dying in the United States, and Republicans are con­tribut­ing to its demise,” con­cludes a new report, The Right Way, released on October 25 by the advo­ca­cy group Conservatives Concerned About the Death…

“Americans’ sup­port for the death penal­ty has dipped to a lev­el not seen in 45 years,” accord­ing to the results of the 2017 Gallup poll released on October 26. Gallup report­ed that, in a nation­wide sur­vey of 1,028 adults polled October 5 – 11, 2017, 55% of Americans said they are ​“in favor of the death penal­ty for a per­son con­vict­ed of mur­der,” down from a report­ed 60% in October 2016. The five per­cent­age-point decline rep­re­sent­ed an 8% decrease in the lev­el of sup­port for the…

A fed­er­al judge has void­ed a con­tract that had pro­vid­ed Orlando-based attor­ney Patrick Megaro hun­dreds of thou­sands of dol­lars of com­pen­sa­tion at the expense of Henry McCollum (pic­tured left, with his broth­er Leon Brown), an intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled for­mer death-row pris­on­er who was exon­er­at­ed in 2014 after DNA test­ing by the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission showed that he had not com­mit­ted the bru­tal rape and mur­der of a young girl for which he had…

Two recent appel­late deci­sions by the Texas courts have thrust into the nation­al spot­light the con­tin­u­ing con­tro­ver­sy over the use of false or flawed foren­sic tes­ti­mo­ny to secure con­vic­tions in death penalty…

The long-term decline in exe­cu­tions in the United States will con­tin­ue in 2017, accord­ing to an analy­sis of exe­cu­tion data by the Death Penalty Information Center. Although the num­ber of exe­cu­tions in the United States in 2017 will sur­pass the 20 exe­cu­tions car­ried out last year — which had been a 25-year low — the data reflects that long-term, mid-term, and short-term exe­cu­tion trends in the United States will con­tin­ue to…

Alabama exe­cut­ed Torrey McNabb (pic­tured) on October 19, amid ques­tions of state inter­fer­ence in the judi­cial process, result­ing in anoth­er appar­ent fail­ure by the drug mida­zo­lam to ren­der a pris­on­er insen­sate dur­ing an exe­cu­tion. Alabama prison offi­cials defend­ed the exe­cu­tion — which took 35 min­utes — as con­form­ing with state pro­to­col, most of which has been with­held from the pub­lic. Montgomery Advertiser exe­cu­tion wit­ness Brian Lyman…

The United States Supreme Court has ordered the Florida Supreme Court to recon­sid­er a deci­sion that had denied a death-row pris­on­er’s claim that he was inel­i­gi­ble for the death penal­ty because he has Intellectual Disability. On October 16, the Court reversed and remand­ed the case of Tavares Wright (pic­tured, left), direct­ing the Florida courts to recon­sid­er his intel­lec­tu­al-dis­abil­i­ty claim in light of the con­sti­tu­tion­al stan­dard the Court…