Publications & Testimony

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…

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…

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…

Many fac­tors con­tribute to wrong­ful con­vic­tions, and it is no dif­fer­ent in cap­i­tal cas­es. But the most recent data from the National Registry of Exonerations points to two fac­tors as the most over­whelm­ing­ly preva­lent caus­es of wrong­ful con­vic­tions in death penal­ty cas­es: offi­cial mis­con­duct and per­jury or false accu­sa­tion. As of May 31, 2017, the Registry reports that offi­cial mis­con­duct was a con­tribut­ing fac­tor in 571 of 836 homi­cide exon­er­a­tions 68.3%,…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…