Publications & Testimony

On August 14, 2018, more than two decades after last putting a prisoner to death, Nebraska executed Carey Dean Moore (pictured). The execution — which used an untested drug formula of diazepam (the sedative Valium), fentanyl citrate (an opioid painkiller), cisatracurium besylate (a paralytic), and potassium chloride to stop the heart — took 23 minutes. It was the state’s first execution ever by lethal injection. The first drug, diazepam, was administered at 10:24 am, and Moore, who had spent 38…

The Florida Supreme Court has halted the execution of Jose Antonio Jimenez (pictured), scheduled for August 14, 2018. The unanimous one-page order issued by the court on August 10 did not explain the reasons the justices granted the stay. However, Jimenez’s motion for a stay referenced 80 pages of police records that, Jimenez’s lawyer said, had not previously been provided to the defense. Those records — which were part of 1,000 pages of documents turned over to the defense two weeks before the…

Over sharp dissents by justices of the U.S. and Tennessee Supreme Courts and lingering questions about the prisoner’s history of mental illness and the efficacy of the state’s lethal-injection protocol, Tennessee executed Billy Ray Irick (pictured) on August 9. He was the first person executed by the state since 2009. Justice Sonia Sotomayor described the process as a “rush to execute” and a descent into “barbarism.” In the days leading up to the execution, the Tennessee Supreme Court and…

Less than a month after a Nevada court halted the execution of Scott Dozier in response to a lawsuit filed by generic-drug manufacturer Alvogen, another drug company has sued Nebraska, seeking to block the use of its medicines in an upcoming execution. The German-based pharmaceutical company Fresenius Kabi filed suit in Nebraska federal court on August 8, 2018 alleging that Nebraska intended to execute Carey Dean Moore on August 14 using drugs manufactured by the company that had been obtained…

In an election viewed as a referendum on racial justice and criminal justice reform, death-penalty opponent Wesley Bell (pictured, left) soundly defeated seven-term incumbent, Robert McCulloch (pictured, right) for the Democratic nomination for St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney. With no Republican opposition in the general election, Bell, a Ferguson, Missouri, city council member, is expected to become the county’s first African-American chief prosecutor. The election was the first time…

Two servicemen — one a former airman on the U.S. military death row, another a decorated Vietnam veteran sentenced to death in Pennsylvania — have won relief from their capital convictions or death sentences. On August 1, 2018, the La Crosse Tribune reported that an Air Force court martial jury had imposed a life sentence on senior airman Andrew Witt (pictured, left) following a three-week capital resentencing trial. The verdict in Witt’s case came two years after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the…

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit ruled on July 27, 2018 that Christopher S. McDaniel (pictured), an investigative reporter for BuzzFeed News, may proceed with his lawsuit challenging the Missouri Department of Corrections’s policy for selecting execution witnesses. McDaniel, who has written numerous articles exposing irregularities in Missouri’s execution procedures, applied to the Director of the Department of Corrections in 2014 to witness executions in Missouri, stating in…

A federal district court has vacated the murder conviction of Arizona death-row prisoner Barry Jones (pictured) in the death of 4‑year-old Rachel Gray, and has ordered the state to immediately retry or release Jones. On July 31, 2018, U.S. District Judge Timothy Burgess granted a new trial to Jones, who has spent 23 years on Arizona’s death row, finding that if Jones had been competently represented at trial, “there is a reasonable probability that his jury would not have convicted him of any…

Pope Francis (pictured) has formally changed the official Catholic Church teaching on the death penalty, calling capital punishment “an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person” and deeming it “inadmissible” in all cases. The Vatican’s August 2, 2018 announcement that it had revised its Catechism — the Church’s official compilation of teachings on a wide range of issues — to unambiguously oppose capital punishment also committed the Church to work “with determination” to abolish the…

On August 2, 2018, the Vatican announced that it had formally changed the official Catechism of the Catholic Church on the death penalty, calling capital punishment “an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person” and deeming it “inadmissible” in all cases. The Catechism — the Catholic Church’s official compilation of teachings on a wide range of issues — was revised to unambiguously oppose capital punishment. The new version of Catechism No. 2267 also committed the Church to work “with…