Publications & Testimony

Items: 1921 — 1930


Mar 22, 2018

U.S. Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Texas Death-Row Prisoner Denied Investigative Funding

In a deci­sion that clar­i­fies the show­ing indi­gent pris­on­ers must make to obtain inves­tiga­tive ser­vices, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in favor of a Texas death-row pris­on­er who was denied fund­ing to chal­lenge the death sen­tence imposed in his case. In Ayestas v. Davis, the Court unan­i­mous­ly ruled that the Texas fed­er­al courts had applied an over­ly restric­tive legal stan­dard in deny­ing Carlos Ayestas (pic­tured) funding to…

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Mar 21, 2018

Supreme Court Declines to Review Arizona Case Challenging Constitutionality of Death Penalty

The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to review a sweep­ing chal­lenge to the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment brought by Arizona death-row pris­on­er Abel Hidalgo (pic­tured). After sched­ul­ing con­sid­er­a­tion of Hidalgo v. Arizona for ten sep­a­rate court con­fer­ences, the Court on March 19 unan­i­mous­ly denied Hidalgo’s peti­tion for writ of cer­tio­rari. In a state­ment issued in con­junc­tion with the Court’s rul­ing, however,…

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Mar 20, 2018

Public Health Experts Criticize Trump’s Proposal to Seek Death Penalty for Drug Traffickers

Saying the ulti­mate penal­ty has to be the death penal­ty,” President Donald Trump (pic­tured) announced on March 19 that he will direct the Department of Justice to seek the death penal­ty against drug traf­fick­ers. The pro­pos­al, includ­ed as part of the administration’s plan to address an opi­oid epi­dem­ic that has result­ed in as many as 64,000 over­dose deaths in 2016 alone, drew imme­di­ate crit­i­cism from pub­lic-health and crim­i­nal-jus­tice experts. We can’t exe­cute our way out of…

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Mar 14, 2018

California Supreme Court Grants New Trial to Man Sent to Death Row 25 Years Ago by False Forensic Evidence

The California Supreme Court has vacat­ed the con­vic­tion of Vicente Figueroa Benavides (pic­tured), say­ing that the foren­sic evi­dence that sent the for­mer Mexican farm­work­er to death row 25 years ago was exten­sive,” per­va­sive,” impact­ful,” and false.” Benavides, now 68, was sen­tenced to death in 1993 after being found guilty of bru­tal­ly mur­der­ing Consuelo Verdugo, his girlfriend’s 21-month-old tod­dler, by rap­ing and anal­ly sodom­iz­ing her. However, the court…

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Mar 13, 2018

Georgia Prisoner Seeks Clemency with New Evidence of Possible Innocence

Carlton Gary, a Georgia death-row pris­on­er sched­uled for exe­cu­tion on March 15, is ask­ing the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles to grant him clemen­cy on the basis of new and with­held evi­dence that under­cuts the pros­e­cu­tion tes­ti­mo­ny against him and sug­gests he did not com­mit the crimes for which he was sen­tenced to death. Gary was con­vict­ed of rap­ing and killing three women in the 1970s, in what pros­e­cu­tors have claimed was part of a string of nine…

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