Publications & Testimony

Mark White (offi­cial por­trait, pic­tured), a for­mer gov­er­nor and attor­ney gen­er­al of Texas who became an out­spo­ken crit­ic of the death penal­ty, died on August 5 at the age of 77. Mr. White served as gov­er­nor from 1983 to 1987, dur­ing which time he over­saw 19 exe­cu­tions. In an unsuc­cess­ful come­back bid in 1990, a cam­paign ad tout­ed his strong sup­port for the death penal­ty, fea­tur­ing pho­tos of the men exe­cut­ed dur­ing his tenure as gov­er­nor and declar­ing, ​“Only a gov­er­nor can…

A Kentucky tri­al court has declared the death penal­ty uncon­sti­tu­tion­al when applied against defen­dants charged with offens­es com­mit­ted while they were younger than age 21. Fayette County Circuit Judge Ernesto Scorsone’s rul­ing bars the Commonwealth’s pros­e­cu­tors from seek­ing the death penal­ty against Travis Bredhold (pic­tured), who was age 18 years and five months at the time of the 2013 mur­der and rob­bery of a gas station…

A Cobb County, Georgia tri­al court has declared a severe­ly men­tal­ly ill cap­i­tal defen­dant incom­pe­tent to stand tri­al and com­mit­ted him to a state men­tal hos­pi­tal, effec­tive­ly end­ing pros­e­cu­tors’ sev­en-year efforts to obtain the death penal­ty in his case. Jesse James Warren (pic­tured) was fac­ing tri­al and a pos­si­ble death sen­tence for killing four men and wound­ing anoth­er in 2010 at a Penske Truck Rental store where he had pre­vi­ous­ly worked. The shoot­ing spree…

In a forth­com­ing arti­cle in the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, released online in July, Ben Jones argues that, despite the pop­u­lar con­cep­tion of death-penal­ty abo­li­tion as a polit­i­cal­ly pro­gres­sive cause, its future suc­cess may well depend upon build­ing sup­port among Republicans and polit­i­cal con­ser­v­a­tives. In The Republican Party, Conservatives, and the Future of Capital Punishment, Jones — the Assistant Director of Rock Ethics Institute at Pennsylvania…

South Carolina pros­e­cu­tors announced on July 25 that they would not appeal a tri­al court rul­ing, grant­i­ng a new, non-cap­i­tal tri­al to for­mer death-row pris­on­er Kenneth Simmons (pic­tured). Finding that pros­e­cu­tors had pre­sent­ed false DNA tes­ti­mo­ny that ​“severe­ly deprived” Simmons of his due process rights, a Dorchester County Circuit Judge over­turned Simmons’s…

The American Bar Association has released a new pub­li­ca­tion, The State of Criminal Justice 2017, an annu­al report exam­in­ing major issues, trends, and sig­nif­i­cant changes in America’s crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem. In a chap­ter devot­ed to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, Ronald J. Tabak, chair of the Death Penalty Committee of the ABA’s Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities, describes sig­nif­i­cant death penal­ty cas­es and devel­op­ments over the past year. Tabak…

A Nebraska tri­al judge has per­mit­ted Patrick Schroeder (pic­tured) — whose lawyers from the Nebraska Commission on Public Advocacy had chal­lenged the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the state’s death penal­ty — to fire his lawyers, with­draw the chal­lenge, and plead guilty to first-degree mur­der. The court deferred until August 22 whether to also per­mit Schroeder to waive his right to have a jury decide whether aggra­vat­ing cir­cum­stance exist that could make him eli­gi­ble for…

A Jackson County, Mississippi judge has sen­tenced Scotty Lakeith Street (pic­tured), a cap­i­tal defen­dant suf­fer­ing from chron­ic para­noid schiz­o­phre­nia, to life with­out pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole after his cap­i­tal sen­tenc­ing jury did not reach a unan­i­mous sen­tenc­ing ver­dict. The sen­tence is anoth­er in a series of notable cas­es in which jurors pre­sent­ed with evi­dence of men­tal ill­ness have spared severe­ly men­tal­ly ill defen­dants the death penal­ty. Street was…

Newly avail­able evi­dence shows that Oklahoma​’s death penal­ty uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly dis­crim­i­nates on the basis of race, accord­ing to peti­tions filed by lawyers seek­ing to over­turn the death sen­tences imposed on two African-American defen­dants, Julius Darius Jones (pic­tured) and Tremane Wood. Jones — a high school ath­lete and hon­or stu­dent who did not fit the descrip­tion of the shoot­er and who has con­tin­u­ous­ly main­tained his inno­cence — and Wood were…