Publications & Testimony

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.

A pros­e­cu­tor’s duty, the U.S. Supreme Court wrote in 1935, ​“is not that it shall win a case, but that jus­tice shall be done.” Yet pros­e­cu­tors across the U.S. have refused to acknowl­edge the inno­cence of defen­dants who have been wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed, obstruct­ing release by retry­ing death-sen­tenced defen­dants despite exon­er­at­ing evi­dence, or con­di­tion­ing their release upon ​“Alford pleas,” which force defen­dants to choose between clear­ing their names or obtain­ing their free­dom. In an article for…

The jus­tices of the U.S. Supreme Court appeared to be favor­ing argu­ments pre­sent­ed by Louisiana death-row pris­on­er Robert McCoy (pic­tured), who was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death after his lawyer, in the face of repeat­ed instruc­tions from his client to argue his inno­cence, instead told the jury that McCoy had killed three fam­i­ly mem­bers. McCoy’s tri­al lawyer, Larry English, said he ignored his clien­t’s instruc­tions and con­ced­ed guilt hop­ing jurors would…