Publications & Testimony

As Florida pre­pared to exe­cute Mark Asay (pic­tured) on August 24, the state’s death-penal­ty prac­tices came under fire from human rights groups, crim­i­nal jus­tice reform­ers, and one of the world’s largest phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies. Asay was exe­cut­ed despite the Florida Supreme Court’s recog­ni­tion that his death sen­tence — imposed by a judge after three jurors had vot­ed for life — was uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly imposed and that the court mis­tak­en­ly believed both of Asay’s…

In a case that led to a land­mark U.S. Supreme Court deci­sion on judi­cial bias, a divid­ed Pennsylvania Supreme Court on August 22 upheld a low­er court’s order over­turn­ing the death penal­ty imposed on Terrance Williams (pic­tured) for the mur­der of a Philadelphia church dea­con. The court split 2 – 2 on the out­come of a new appeal that had been ordered by the U.S. Supreme Court after for­mer Philadelphia District Attorney Ronald Castille — who had…

Calling a sen­tence of death ​“the ulti­mate, per­ma­nent pun­ish­ment,” Missouri Governor Eric Greitens (pic­tured) has stayed the exe­cu­tion of Marcellus Williams ​“in light of new infor­ma­tion” that Williams’s lawyers say demon­strate he is inno­cent of the mur­der of for­mer St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Felisha…

Citing ​“relent­less non-com­pli­ance” with court orders and ​“chron­ic obstruc­tion­ism” by a pros­e­cu­tion team it says ​“has effec­tive­ly com­pro­mised” Scott Dekraai​’s rights to due process and a fair penal­ty tri­al, a California tri­al court has barred pros­e­cu­tors from pur­su­ing the death penal­ty in the worst mass killing in Orange County…

The states of Arkansas and Nevada have announced that they have obtained new sup­plies of exe­cu­tion drugs that will per­mit them to car­ry out two exe­cu­tions in what crit­ics have called questionable…

Merck Chief Executive Officer Kenneth C. Frazier (pic­tured) resigned from the president’s American Manufacturing Council on August 14, say­ing “[a]s CEO of Merck and as a mat­ter of per­son­al con­science, I feel a respon­si­bil­i­ty to take a stand against intol­er­ance and extrem­ism.” In a state­ment post­ed on Merck’s Twitter account, Frazier said: ​“Our coun­try’s strength stems from its diver­si­ty and the con­tri­bu­tions made by men and women of dif­fer­ent faiths, races,…

After hav­ing pre­vi­ous­ly grant­ed Marcellus Williams (pic­tured) a stay of exe­cu­tion in 2015 to per­mit DNA test­ing in his case, the Missouri Supreme Court on August 15 sum­mar­i­ly denied him a new exe­cu­tion stay, despite recent­ly obtained results of that test­ing that sup­port his innocence…

An Arizona death-row pris­on­er has peti­tioned the U.S. Supreme Court to review the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the state’s cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment statute, argu­ing that Arizona’s sen­tenc­ing scheme ​“utter­ly fails” the con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly required task of lim­it­ing the death penal­ty to the worst crimes and worst…

A group of more than 100 rab­bis from mul­ti­ple Jewish denom­i­na­tions have issued a state­ment express­ing their oppo­si­tion to the use of the death penal­ty in the United States. The state­ment, post­ed by Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz (pic­tured) in Forward.com’s Scribe—a curat­ed con­trib­u­tor net­work of Jewish thought — called for an end to the ​“cru­el prac­tice” of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment and ​“for the begin­ning of a new par­a­digm of fair, equi­table restora­tive jus­tice.” The rab­bis said that “[a]s Jews…

In a deci­sion that could have broad impact on the state’s death row, the Florida Supreme Court on August 10 upheld the death sen­tence imposed on James Hitchcock, despite his hav­ing been uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly sen­tenced to death. In a 6 – 1 rul­ing, the court said it would not enforce its 2016 rul­ing in Hurst v. State—which declared uncon­sti­tu­tion­al any death sen­tence imposed after one or more sen­tenc­ing jurors had vot­ed that a life sentence…