Publications & Testimony

An Ohio appeals court heard argu­ment on June 6 on whether to grant a new tri­al to for­mer death-row pris­on­er Kevin Keith (pic­tured), whose death sen­tence was com­mut­ed to life with­out parole by Ohio Governor Ted Strickland in 2010 amid con­cerns that he may be inno­cent. Keith, who has con­sis­tent­ly main­tained his inno­cence of the three 1994 mur­ders for which he was sen­tenced to death, pre­sent­ed argu­ment to the Ohio Court of Appeals for the 3^rd…

From 2007 to 2013, Dallas sen­tenced twelve cap­i­tal­ly charged defen­dants to death — more than any oth­er coun­ty in Texas—and Dallas ranks sec­ond nation­al­ly, behind only Harris County (Houston), in the num­ber it has exe­cut­ed since 1972. But the coun­ty has not imposed any new death sen­tences since then, and the recent life sen­tences in the cap­i­tal tri­als of Justin Smith and Erbie Bowser high­light a statewide trend…

Robert Melson (pic­tured), an Alabama death-row pris­on­er whose clemen­cy peti­tion alleges that aban­don­ment by his post-con­vic­tion lawyers pre­vent­ed him from ade­quate­ly chal­leng­ing the flawed foren­sic evi­dence in his case, received a stay of exe­cu­tion from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11^th Circuit on a chal­lenge to Alabama’s lethal-injec­tion pro­to­col. Melson was con­vict­ed of three mur­ders at a Popeye’s restau­rant in 1994. A sur­vivor of the crime recognized…

The Indiana Court of Appeals has void­ed the state’s lethal-injec­tion pro­to­col. In a rul­ing on June 1, 2017, the state inter­me­di­ate appeals court held that the Indiana Department of Corrections (DOC) had failed to com­ply with state rule­mak­ing pro­ce­dures when it adopt­ed a nev­er-before-used exe­cu­tion pro­to­col with­out pub­lic notice or com­ment. In 2014, the DOC announced that it had adopt­ed a new exe­cu­tion pro­to­col ​“infor­mal­ly as an inter­nal DOC pol­i­cy.” The pro­to­col called for a…

Todd Kohlhepp (pic­tured) plead­ed guilty to sev­en South Carolina mur­ders on May 26, 2017 and was sen­tenced to sev­en con­sec­u­tive life sen­tences, plus 60 addi­tion­al years for the kid­nap­ping and sex­u­al assault of sur­viv­ing vic­tim Kala Brown. Kohlhepp made a deal with pros­e­cu­tors to avoid the death penal­ty, pro­vid­ing infor­ma­tion that solved four mur­ders at a motor­cy­cle store in 2003 and spar­ing Brown and the fam­i­lies of the mur­der vic­tims from endur­ing a lengthy tri­al and appeals…

A Las Vegas, Nevada, judge — who, as a pros­e­cu­tor, com­mit­ted mis­con­duct in sev­er­al death-penal­ty tri­als — now faces judi­cial mis­con­duct charges aris­ing out of anoth­er mur­der case in which a defen­dant he pros­e­cut­ed has been grant­ed a hear­ing to prove her…

On Friday, May 26, Alabama Governor Kay Ivey (pic­tured) signed into law a statute denom­i­nat­ed the ​“Fair Justice Act,” which is designed to short­en the state death-penal­ty appeals process. The law con­stricts the amount of time death-row pris­on­ers have to file appeals, impos­es time lim­its for judges to rule on appeals, and requires pris­on­ers to pur­sue their direct appeal and post-con­vic­tion appeal simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, includ­ing rais­ing claims of appel­late coun­sel’s ineffectiveness…

The Texas 3^rd District Court of Appeals has reject­ed claims made by state cor­rec­tions offi­cials that dis­clo­sure of the iden­ti­ty of its sup­pli­er of the exe­cu­tion drug pen­to­bar­bi­tal would expose the com­pa­ny to a ​“sub­stan­tial threat of phys­i­cal harm.” Finding these claims to be ​“mere spec­u­la­tion,” the appeals court ruled on May 25, 2017, that Texas must dis­close the iden­ti­ty of the com­pound­ing phar­ma­cy that sup­plied exe­cu­tion drugs to the state in…

Thirty years after the crime that sent him to Pennsylvania’s death row and 15 years after his case was argued in the U.S. Supreme Court, David Sattazahn was resen­tenced to life with­out parole — the sen­tence he ini­tial­ly received in his first tri­al in 1991. Prosecutors, defense attor­neys, and the vic­tim’s fam­i­ly all agreed that a life sen­tence was the best out­come at this point in the case. Sattazahn was con­vict­ed of first-degree mur­der and the court sentenced…