Publications & Testimony

Saying that pur­su­ing the death penal­ty ​“is not in the best inter­ests of this com­mu­ni­ty or in the best inter­ests of jus­tice,” Orange-Osceola County, Florida State Attorney Aramis Ayala (pic­tured) announced on March 16 that her office would not seek the death penal­ty while she is State…

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit ruled on March 15 that Alabama death-row pris­on­er Vernon Madison (pic­tured) — who was spared exe­cu­tion last May when the U.S. Supreme Court dead­locked at 4 – 4 on whether to lift a stay — is not men­tal­ly com­pe­tent to be…

Prosecutorial mis­con­duct, includ­ing with­hold­ing evi­dence favor­able to the defense, is the most com­mon cause of wrong­ful con­vic­tions in death penal­ty cas­es, but pros­e­cu­tors fre­quent­ly fail to dis­close this evi­dence, nar­row­ly inter­pret­ing the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1963 deci­sion in Brady v. Maryland call­ing for its dis­clo­sure. On March 29, the Court will hear two con­sol­i­dat­ed cas­es—Turner v. United States and Overton v. United States—that raise ques­tions under…

A study pub­lished in The Yale Law Journal pro­vides new evi­dence that, as pub­lic opin­ion con­tin­ues to shift away from the death penal­ty, juries empan­eled in cap­i­tal cas­es may become even less rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the com­mu­ni­ty and even more prone to con­vict. The study—con­duct­ed by Professors Brandon Garrett (University of Virginia), Daniel Krauss (Claremont-McKenna College), and Nicholas Scurich (University of California Irvine) — found that with increased pub­lic oppo­si­tion to the…

As U.S. phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies have removed med­i­cines from the mar­ket to pre­vent states from obtain­ing them for exe­cu­tions, states have turned to alter­na­tives, like the seda­tive mida­zo­lam. Dr. Armin Walser, who was part of the team that invent­ed the drug in the 1970s, is dis­mayed at that devel­op­ment. ​“I didn’t make it for the pur­pose” of exe­cut­ing pris­on­ers, Dr. Walser told The New York Times. ​“I am not a friend of the death penal­ty or…

A Florida bill that would require the jury to make a unan­i­mous rec­om­men­da­tion for death before a judge may impose a death sen­tence will head to Governor Rick Scott for final approval, after both hous­es of the Florida leg­is­la­ture passed it by over­whelm­ing mar­gins. Senate Bill 280 passed unan­i­mous­ly (37 – 0) on March 9, and the cor­re­spond­ing House Bill 527 passed by a 112 – 3 vote on March…

In a new arti­cle for the Lewis & Clark Law Review, author Carla Edmondson argues that the future dan­ger­ous­ness inquiry that is implic­it in cap­i­tal setenc­ing deter­mi­na­tions ​“is a fun­da­men­tal­ly flawed ques­tion that leads to arbi­trary and capri­cious death sen­tences” and because of the ​“per­sis­tent influ­ence of future dan­ger­ous­ness … ren­ders the death penal­ty incom­pat­i­ble with the pro­hi­bi­tions of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments on cru­el and unusual…

On March 7, the United States Supreme Court denied a stay of exe­cu­tion for Texas death-row pris­on­er Rolando Ruiz, declin­ing to con­sid­er his claim that the more than 20 years he had been incar­cer­at­ed on death row, most­ly in soli­tary con­fine­ment, vio­lat­ed the Eighth Amendment pro­hi­bi­tion against cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment. Ruiz’s lawyers had urged the Court to con­sid­er this issue, writ­ing, ​“At this point, a quar­ter-cen­tu­ry has elapsed since…

Companion reports released on March 7 by the National Registry of Exonerations found record num­bers of exon­er­a­tions and wrong­ful con­vic­tions involv­ing offi­cial mis­con­duct in 2016, and strik­ing evi­dence of racial bias both in the wrong­ful con­vic­tions them­selves and in the time it took the judi­cial process to exon­er­ate the wrong­ful­ly incar­cer­at­ed. The Registry’s report, Exonerations in 2016, found a record 166 exon­er­a­tions in 2016, with 54 defen­dants exon­er­at­ed of…

A Wake County, North Carolina jury vot­ed to spare Nathan Holden​’s life on March 3, mark­ing the eighth con­sec­u­tive cap­i­tal sen­tenc­ing tri­al in the coun­ty in which juries had opt­ed to sen­tence a defen­dant to life with­out parole instead of the death penal­ty. No jury in Wake County has imposed a death sen­tence since 2007. Prosecutors had sought the death penal­ty against Holden for mur­der­ing his ex-wife’s par­ents and attempt­ing to kill her. The…