Publications & Testimony

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…

After a hia­tus of 3½ years, Ohio resumed exe­cu­tions on July 26, putting Ronald Phillips (pic­tured) to death with a three-drug com­bi­na­tion of the seda­tive mida­zo­lam, the par­a­lyt­ic drug rocuro­ni­um bro­mide, and the heart-stop­ping drug potas­si­um chlo­ride. Phillips was pro­nounced dead at 10:43 a.m. It was the state’s first exe­cu­tion since the botched exe­cu­tion of Dennis McGuire on January 16, 2014, and the 15^th in the U.S. in…

Arizona will soon end its pol­i­cy of auto­mat­i­cal­ly and indef­i­nite­ly incar­cer­at­ing death-row pris­on­ers in soli­tary con­fine­ment, join­ing a grow­ing num­ber of states to ease dra­con­ian con­di­tions on their state death rows. Arizona’s action is part of a set­tle­ment of a fed­er­al law­suit filed against the Department of Corrections (DOC) by death-row pris­on­er Scott Nordstrom (pic­tured), which argued that the state’s death-row con­di­tions were unconstitutionally…

Bucks County, Pennsylvania pros­e­cu­tors have agreed not to seek the death penal­ty for defen­dant Cosmo DiNardo (pic­tured), in exchange for his con­fes­sion to a quadru­ple mur­der, infor­ma­tion impli­cat­ing an accom­plice, and infor­ma­tion per­mit­ting author­i­ties to recov­er the body of one of the vic­tims. The deal was made quick­ly — just one week after the begin­ning of the inves­ti­ga­tion into the dis­ap­pear­ance of the four young men and the dis­cov­ery of three of the…

Lawyers for Texas death-row pris­on­er TaiChin Preyor (pic­tured), whose pri­or fed­er­al habeas lawyer relied on research from Wikipedia and the guid­ance of a dis­barred lawyer, have filed motions in state and fed­er­al courts seek­ing to stay his sched­uled July 27 exe­cu­tion. His plead­ings allege that he was rep­re­sent­ed by a suc­ces­sion of inept coun­sel, includ­ing a penal­ty-phase lawyer who failed to inter­view key wit­ness or seek crit­i­cal men­tal health test­ing; a…

The Chairman of a state task force to reform Ohio’s death penal­ty and two for­mer state Attorney Generals have joined a diverse coali­tion of pub­lic offi­cials, death-row exonerees, fam­i­ly mem­bers of mur­der vic­tims, for­mer cor­rec­tions offi­cials, and reli­gious lead­ers urg­ing Ohio Governor John Kasich to halt the state’s planned resump­tion of exe­cu­tions. Citing leg­isla­tive inac­tion on crit­i­cal reforms, the high risk of error, and botched exe­cu­tions, the groups held a press…

A new gen­er­a­tion of pros­e­cu­tors, elect­ed across the coun­try on a plat­form of crim­i­nal jus­tice reform, are tak­ing a dif­fer­ent approach to crim­i­nal jus­tice poli­cies than their pre­de­ces­sors, includ­ing a reduc­tion in the use of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. A Christian Science Monitor pro­file of these pros­e­cu­tors — focus­ing on Mark Gonzalez (pic­tured), the Nueces County, Texas, dis­trict attor­ney — says “[f]rom Texas to Florida to Illinois, many of these young pros­e­cu­tors are eschew­ing the death…

Utah is not pro­vid­ing suf­fi­cient fund­ing to com­pe­tent­ly rep­re­sent death-row pris­on­ers dur­ing their appeals, accord­ing to a motion filed on behalf of Douglas Lovell, the man most recent­ly sen­tenced to death in the state. Because of that, Lovell’s lawyer Samuel Newton says, Lovell’s death sen­tence should be vacat­ed and he should be resen­tenced to life in…

Four coun­ties that rank among the most aggres­sive users of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the United States have pro­longed pat­terns of pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct, accord­ing to a new report by the Harvard-based Fair Punishment Project. The report, ​“The Recidivists: Four Prosecutors Who Repeatedly Violate the Constitution,” exam­ined state appel­late court deci­sions in California, Louisiana, Missouri, and Tennessee from 2010 – 2015, and found that pros­e­cu­tors in Orange County, CA;…