Publications & Testimony

South Carolina pros­e­cu­tors announced on July 25 that they would not appeal a tri­al court rul­ing, grant­i­ng a new, non-cap­i­­tal tri­al to for­mer death-row pris­on­er Kenneth Simmons (pic­tured). Finding that pros­e­cu­tors had pre­sent­ed false DNA tes­ti­mo­ny that​“severe­ly deprived” Simmons of his due process rights, a Dorchester County Circuit Judge over­turned Simmons’s…

The American Bar Association has released a new pub­li­ca­tion, The State of Criminal Justice 2017, an annu­al report exam­in­ing major issues, trends, and sig­nif­i­cant changes in America’s crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem. In a chap­ter devot­ed to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, Ronald J. Tabak, chair of the Death Penalty Committee of the ABA’s Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities, describes sig­nif­i­cant death penal­ty cas­es and developments…

Cert. grant­ed: January 13, 2017 Argument: April 24, 2017 (Read the Transcript)Decided: June 26, 2017…

A Nebraska tri­al judge has per­mit­ted Patrick Schroeder (pic­tured) — whose lawyers from the Nebraska Commission on Public Advocacy had chal­lenged the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the state’s death penal­ty — to fire his lawyers, with­draw the chal­lenge, and plead guilty to first-degree mur­der. The court deferred until August 22 whether to also per­mit Schroeder to waive his right to have a jury decide whether aggra­vat­ing cir­cum­stance exist that could…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…