Publications & Testimony

On June 15, 2023, Ohio death-sen­tenced pris­on­er Lamont Hunter (pic­tured) was released after serv­ing near­ly 18 years for alleged­ly caus­ing the death of his 3‑year-old son, Trustin Blue. To obtain his free­dom, he plead­ed guilty to less­er charges of invol­un­tary manslaugh­ter and child endan­ger­ment. Prosecutors agreed to offer a plea deal after Hamilton County Common Pleas Court Judge Christian A. Jenkins set bond for Mr. Hunter and dis­missed pros­e­cu­tors’ request to deny his bond.

The Death Penalty Information Center’s new report on race and the death penal­ty in Tennessee places the state’s death penal­ty sys­tem in his­tor­i­cal con­text, doc­u­ment­ing how racial dis­crim­i­na­tion and racial vio­lence con­tin­ue to influ­ence the admin­is­tra­tion of the death penal­ty. Doomed to Repeat: The Legacy of Race in Tennessee’s Contemporary Death Penalty, released June 22, 2023, notes that as the Tennessee Department of Correction devel­ops new lethal injec­tion pro­to­cols and pre­pares to resume exe­cu­tions, the state may find it use­ful to under­stand how Tennessee arrived at its cur­rent cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment system.

Seventy years after the exe­cu­tions of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, their sons, Michael and Robert Meeropol, have renewed their efforts to clear their mother’s name. Just ten and six years old when their par­ents were exe­cut­ed for fed­er­al charges of con­spir­a­cy to com­mit espi­onage, both men grew up believ­ing in their par­ents’ inno­cence. The Rosenbergs remain the only indi­vid­u­als put to death for peace­time espi­onage in American history. 

Juneteenth is a cel­e­bra­tion and remem­brance of the end of slav­ery in the United States fol­low­ing the Union’s vic­to­ry in the Civil War. In June 2021, President Joseph Biden signed leg­is­la­tion estab­lish­ing Juneteenth as a fed­er­al hol­i­day, for­mal­ly com­mem­o­rat­ing the end of slav­ery. According to President Biden, ​“Juneteenth marks both the long, hard night of slav­ery and sub­ju­ga­tion, and the promise of a greater morn­ing to come.” Among the many groups com­mem­o­rat­ing Juneteenth was Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty, a net­work of polit­i­cal and social con­ser­v­a­tives who ques­tion the…

On June 22, 2023, the Death Penalty Information Center released Doomed to Repeat: How Racial History Informs Tennessee’s Death Penalty, a report plac­ing the state’s death penal­ty sys­tem in his­tor­i­cal con­text. Below are ten impor­tant facts from the report that should inform future deci­sions about the use of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in Tennessee. 

On June 15, 2023, Arizona death-sen­tenced pris­on­er Barry Jones was freed after serv­ing 29 years for a crime that the Arizona Attorney General agreed he did not com­mit. Mr. Jones was sen­tenced to death in 1995 after being con­vict­ed of mur­der­ing his girlfriend’s four-year-old daugh­ter in 1994. Medical evi­dence that was read­i­ly avail­able at the time of tri­al showed that the child did not sus­tain her fatal inter­nal injuries dur­ing the time while she was in Mr. Jones’s care. But this evi­dence was not dis­cov­ered by either his tri­al attor­ney or…

On June 15, 2023, five ami­cus briefs were filed with the United States Supreme Court in sup­port of Robert Roberson (pic­tured with his daugh­ter, Nikki), a Texas death-sen­tenced pris­on­er who has long claimed to be inno­cent of caus­ing the death of his daugh­ter. Mr. Roberson filed his peti­tion with the Supreme Court on May 11^th after the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) denied his request for a new tri­al despite the pre­sen­ta­tion of new sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence that sound­ly dis­cred­it­ed the ​“shak­en baby syn­drome” (SBS) the­o­ry the pros­e­cu­tion had relied…

On June 13, 2023, 51 of the 57 peo­ple on Louisiana’s death row filed clemen­cy appli­ca­tions with the Louisiana Board of Pardons and Committee on Parole, ask­ing Governor John Bel Edwards to com­mute their sen­tences to life with­out parole. The clemen­cy appli­ca­tions describe flaws in the indi­vid­ual cas­es – includ­ing men­tal ill­ness and intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty, inno­cence claims, and offi­cial mis­con­duct – but cumu­la­tive­ly por­tray a death penal­ty sys­tem marked by sig­nif­i­cant sys­temic prob­lems. The board­’s mem­bers, all of whom are appoint­ed by Edwards, will weigh the appli­ca­tions indi­vid­u­al­ly and then send their…

In Seventy Times Seven: A True Story of Murder and Mercy, author Alex Mar presents an in-depth account of a vio­lent homi­cide and its impact on a racial­ly divid­ed com­mu­ni­ty and the indi­vid­u­als involved. Mar not only dis­cuss­es the fears asso­ci­at­ed with mod­ern crime and pun­ish­ment but also address­es the human capac­i­ty for com­pas­sion and for­give­ness. In the pro­logue, Mar writes that ​“this is a sto­ry that asks what any com­mu­ni­ty is will­ing to accept as just con­se­quences — as jus­tice — for harm done. It is a dif­fi­cult ques­tion, one…

Duane Owen is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed in Florida on June 15, 2023. If it occurs, his exe­cu­tion will be the fourth exe­cu­tion in Florida this year, after a three year pause in exe­cu­tions due to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. Mr. Owen was con­vict­ed in 1986 of crimes that occurred in 1984.