Publications & Testimony

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…

Tommy Arthur (pic­tured), an Alabama death-row pris­on­er whose 35-year jour­ney through the court sys­tem has frus­trat­ed both pro­po­nents and oppo­nents of the death penal­ty, is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed on May 25, 2017, the eighth time Alabama has set an exe­cu­tion date in his…

On May 22, the U.S. Supreme Court denied Florida​’s peti­tion for a writ of cer­tio­rari in Florida v. Hurst, refus­ing to dis­turb a deci­sion of the Florida Supreme Court that had declared it uncon­sti­tu­tion­al for judges to impose death sen­tences after one or more jurors in the case had vot­ed for life. The rul­ing effec­tive­ly ends Florida pros­e­cu­tors’ efforts to reverse the state court rul­ing — which could over­turn approx­i­mate­ly 200 death sen­tences in the state — requiring that…

“The death penal­ty in Washington is like a zom­bie, not alive or dead, yet con­tin­u­ing to eat its way through pre­cious resources in the crim­i­nal-jus­tice sys­tem,” The Seattle Times edi­to­r­i­al board declared on May 21, urg­ing the state leg­is­la­ture to end cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Washington cur­rent­ly has a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions, imposed by Governor Jay Inslee in 2014, lead­ing the Times to declare the prac­tice ​“effec­tive­ly dead.” But because…

No death penal­ty jury has ever found a defen­dant charged with inten­tion­al mur­der to be inel­i­gi­ble for the death penal­ty under Georgia​’s intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty law, accord­ing to a new empir­i­cal study pub­lished in Georgia State University Law…

Lush Cosmetics announced on May 15 it has launched a com­mer­cial effort to raise aware­ness about cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment and sup­port the abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty. The com­pa­ny’s ​“Death ≠ Justice” cam­paign includes the release of a short doc­u­men­tary, ​“Exonerated,” which tells the sto­ry of Ohio death-row exoneree Kwame Ajamu. Ajamu (then 17 years old), his broth­er Ronnie Bridgman, and Ricky Jackson were wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in 1975. They were exonerated 39…

In a repu­di­a­tion of the city’s past his­to­ry as one of the nation’s lead­ing pro­duc­ers of death sen­tences, Philadelphia has joined the trend of major nation­al juris­dic­tions to select reform can­di­dates who have pledged to lim­it or elim­i­nate use of the death penal­ty. On May 16, pri­ma­ry vot­ers in the over­whelm­ing­ly Democratic city select­ed long-time civ­il rights lawyer Lawrence Krasner (pic­tured) as the Democratic nom­i­nee for District Attorney. Krasner, a defense…

On May 13, 2017, James ​“Jimmy” Dennis (pic­tured, cen­ter, with some of his defense team) was released from prison after more than 25 years on Pennsylvania​’s death row. His release marked the cul­mi­na­tion of three unre­lat­ed wrong­ful cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tions in Philadelphia in the ear­ly-1990s, with the com­mon thread a pat­tern of mis­con­duct by the same two Philadelphia homicide…