Publications & Testimony

Severely restrict­ing the use of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment or abol­ish­ing the death penal­ty alto­geth­er would help rec­ti­fy some of the per­sis­tent racial dis­par­i­ties found in the United States’ crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem, accord­ing to Cassia Spohn (pic­tured), the Foundation Professor of Criminology and Director of the School of Criminology & Criminal Justice at Arizona State University. In a chap­ter on Race and Sentencing Disparity in the recent­ly released Academy for Justice…

Alabama pros­e­cu­tors have agreed that Renard Marcel Daniel (pic­tured) should be resen­tenced to life with­out parole, after the state’s men­tal health expert admin­is­tered psy­cho­log­i­cal tests to Daniel that showed the intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled man had an IQ of 48. Earlier in January, Daniel’s lawyers — with the con­sent of the Alabama Attorney General’s office — filed a motion in fed­er­al dis­trict court joint­ly ask­ing the court to vacate Daniel’s death sen­tence and return…

The Colorado Supreme Court has upheld a tri­al court rul­ing over­turn­ing the first-degree mur­der con­vic­tion of David Bueno (pic­tured) after Arapahoe County pros­e­cu­tors who sought the death penal­ty against him in a prison killing hid evi­dence that point­ed to anoth­er sus­pect. The January 22 rul­ing comes in the wake of a tri­al court rul­ing that pros­e­cu­tors in the state’s 18^th Judicial District, which includes Arapahoe County, also suppressed…

Drawing on their expe­ri­ence in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem, elect­ed law enforce­ment offi­cials in Washington and Texas have urged repeal of their states’ death-penalty…

The United States Supreme Court has stayed the exe­cu­tion of Vernon Madison to con­sid­er for a sec­ond time ques­tions relat­ed to his com­pe­ten­cy to be…

A Wake County, North Carolina jury has reject­ed the death penal­ty for 24-year-old Donovan Jevonte Richardson (pic­tured) and sen­tenced him to two life sen­tences, mark­ing the ninth con­sec­u­tive Wake County cap­i­tal tri­al to result in a life ver­dict. No jury has imposed the death penal­ty in the coun­ty since 2007. ​“The real­i­ty,” said Gretchen Engel, Executive Director of the Durham-based Center for Death Penalty Litigation, is that ​“it just doesn’t…

A Wake County, North Carolina jury has reject­ed the death penal­ty for 24-year-old Donovan Jevonte Richardson (pic­tured) and sen­tenced him to two life sen­tences, mark­ing the ninth con­sec­u­tive Wake County cap­i­tal tri­al to result in a life ver­dict. No jury has imposed the death penal­ty in the coun­ty since 2007. ​“The real­i­ty,” said Gretchen Engel, Executive Director of the Durham-based Center for Death Penalty Litigation, is that ​“it just doesn’t…

In three days of bulk deci­sion-mak­ing, the Florida Supreme Court has denied new sen­tenc­ing hear­ings to more than thir­ty death-row pris­on­ers, declin­ing to enforce its bar against non-unan­i­mous death sen­tences to cas­es that became final on appeal before June 2002. At least 24 of the pris­on­ers who were denied relief had been uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly sen­tenced to death after non-unan­i­mous jury sen­tenc­ing rec­om­men­da­tions, includ­ing three pris­on­ers—Etheria Verdell…

Lawyers for 67-year-old Vernon Madison (pic­tured), a death-row pris­on­er whose diag­no­sis of ​“irre­versible and pro­gres­sive” vas­cu­lar demen­tia has left him with no mem­o­ry of the crime for which he was sen­tenced to death, have filed a motion to stay his January 25 exe­cu­tion in Alabama. In a peti­tion for writ of cer­tio­rari and motion for stay of exe­cu­tion filed January 18 in the U.S. Supreme Court, Madison’s lawyers argue that the courts wrong­ly found Madison…

Kent Whitaker, who sur­vived a shoot­ing in which his wife, Tricia and younger son, Kevin were mur­dered, has asked the state of Texas to spare the life of his only remain­ing son, Thomas ​“Bart” Whitaker (pic­tured), who was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death for their mur­ders. Kent Whitaker told the Austin American-Statesman, ​“I have seen too much killing already. I don’t want to see him exe­cut­ed right there in front of my eyes,” he said.