Publications & Testimony

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

For the sec­ond time in four months, a Missouri judge has imposed a death sen­tence after a cap­i­­tal-sen­­tenc­ing jury did not reach a unan­i­mous sen­tenc­ing deci­sion. Greene County Circuit Judge Thomas Mountjoy sen­tenced 49-year-old Craig Wood (pic­tured) to death on January 11 for the February 2014 killing of 10-year-old Hailey Owens. Wood was con­vict­ed of first-degree mur­der in November 2017, but the jury — empaneled from…