Publications & Testimony

Sometimes you need a joke about a cute but very angry desert rain frog to prepare an unsuspecting audience for a serious discussion of lethal-injection executions in the United States. That was the approach undertaken by Last Week Tonight, the satirical weekly HBO comedy-news show hosted by John Oliver, as Oliver addressed the deadly serious issue of lethal injection in the show’s May 5, 2019 episode. Oliver called the death penalty “a wrong, bad thing the government should not be able to do,”…

A Texas trial court judge has formally declared Alfred Dewayne Brown (pictured) “actually innocent” of the murder charges that led to his wrongful conviction and death sentence in 2005. The order, issued on May 3, 2019 by Harris County District Court Judge George Powell, paves the way for Brown to receive compensation from the state for the ten years he was wrongfully incarcerated on death row for the killing of a Houston police officer. Brown was exonerated in 2015 after evidence showed that…

For the second time in as many years, New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu (pictured, left) has vetoed a bill to repeal the state’s death penalty. Sununu’s action on May 3, 2019 sets the stage for an anticipated attempt later in the legislative session to override the Governor’s veto. A two-thirds vote in each house is required to override. The New Hampshire legislature also voted to repeal the death penalty during its 2018 legislative session, but fell short of the two-thirds majority…

Tennessee executed Sedley Alley in 2006 for the brutal rape and murder of Marine Lance Corporal Suzanne Collins, after having denied him DNA testing that his lawyers believed could have established his innocence. Now, after new evidence suggests that another man may have committed the murder, the Innocence Project has filed a petition in Shelby County (Memphis) Criminal Court on behalf of Alley’s estate renewing Alley’s request for DNA testing. Local counsel also sent a letter to Governor Bill…

Christian church leaders from Catholic and Protestant denominations across Louisiana have called upon state lawmakers to pass legislation to end the death penalty in the Bayou State. On April 25, 2019, the Louisiana Interchurch Conference and two dozen faith representatives held a press conference on the steps of the state capitol in Baton Rouge advocating for legislation to abolish the state’s capital punishment law and pledging their support for as long as it takes for abolition efforts to…

A federal district court has overturned the conviction of Genesis Hill (pictured), who was sentenced to death in Ohio in 1991 for the death of his six-month-old daughter, Domika, based upon a questionable shaken-baby diagnosis. On April 24, 2019, Chief Judge Edmund A. Sargus, Jr. of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio found that Ohio prosecutors had unconstitutionally withheld exculpatory evidence that called into question the credibility of a key witness and the testimony…

One month into California’s moratorium on executions, the historic action by Governor Gavin Newsom (pictured) is drawing high praise from exonerees, mixed reviews from victims’ families, and unusually personal condemnation from political adversaries. Kirk Bloodsworth — the first former death-row prisoner exonerated by DNA evidence — wrote that he was “thrilled” by the news of the moratorium. Bloodsworth, the interim executive director of the death-row exonerees’ organization, Witness to…

Arguing that a brain-damaged woman facing the death penalty for the starving death of her young daughter “was incapable of representing herself,” lawyers from the Georgia Office of the Capital Defender have asked that they be reappointed as her counsel if the case advances to the penalty-phase of her trial for life or death. Gwinnett County Superior Court Judge George Hutchinson had permitted Tiffany Moss (pictured) to discharge her lawyers and represent herself, even though she has not…

In an action condemned by the United Nations and human rights groups as a flagrant violation of international law, Saudi Arabia beheaded 37 people, including juvenile offenders, in six separate locations on April 23, 2019. It was the nation’s largest mass execution since January 2016. Most of the people executed were members of the Shi’a Muslim minority community. The human rights advocates blasted Saudi officials for targeting politically disfavored groups and disregarding international fair…