Publications & Testimony
Items: 201 — 210
May 01, 2024
Worldwide Wednesday International Roundup: Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iran, Japan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Uganda, United States, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe
Missouri’s April 9th execution of Brian Dorsey, despite widespread support for his clemency, once again garnered condemnation from the European Union, which described it as a“inhuman and degrading practice.” The EU’s statement highlighted the lack of the death penalty as a deterrent and the irreversibility of the punishment, noting that 197 death-sentenced prisoners have been exonerated.“The EU continues to call for the universal abolition of the death…
Read MoreApr 30, 2024
Discussions with DPIC Podcast: Professor Elisabeth Semel on the Implications of Batson v. Kentucky and California’s Capital Punishment System
In this month’s episode of Discussions with DPIC, Managing Director Anne Holsinger speaks with Elisabeth Semel, Clinical Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley (pictured). Professor Semel joined Berkeley Law in 2001 as the first director of the school’s death penalty clinic and remains the clinic’s co-director, where students have represented individuals facing capital punishment and written amicus briefs in death penalty cases before the United…
Read MoreApr 29, 2024
Arkansas Supreme Court Decision Allows New DNA Testing in Case of the “West Memphis Three,” Convicted of Killing Three Children in 1993
Damien…
Read MoreApr 26, 2024
Federal Judge Orders Alameda County District Attorney to Review 35 Capital Cases Following Disclosure of Prosecutorial Misconduct in Jury Selection
Alameda…
Read MoreApr 25, 2024
Articles of Interest: Juror Who Sentenced Toforest Johnson to Death Now Believes He Is Innocent
Monique…
Read MoreApr 24, 2024
Supreme Court Roundup: Justices Hear Oral Arguments on Ineffective Assistance of Counsel, Cruel and Unusual Punishment; Defend Positions on Stays
On April 17, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Thornell v. Jones, a case implicating the test for ineffective assistance of counsel — and the first and only oral argument in a death penalty case scheduled this term. Arizona appealed the Ninth Circuit’s decision vacating the death sentence of Danny Lee Jones, which found that Mr. Jones was prejudiced by his attorney’s failure to present key mitigating evidence as to Mr. Jones’ brain damage, childhood…
Read MoreApr 23, 2024
Articles of Interest: Reprieve Issues New Report on Botched Executions and Racial Disparities
A new report issued April 17, 2024 by the UK-based international human rights organization Reprieve found racial disparities in the occurrence of botched executions in the United States. As reported in The Guardian, Reprieve analyzed all lethal injection executions between 1976 and 2023. It chronicled 73 confirmed botched procedures and found that 8% of executions of Black people were botched (37 times out of 465 executions), compared with 4% for white people (28…
Read MoreApr 22, 2024
Louisiana Senate Committee Approves Legislation Supported by Jewish Community to Remove Nitrogen Hypoxia as Possible Method of Execution
Arizona…
Read MoreApr 18, 2024
United States Provides Binding Assurances to the United Kingdom that Julian Assange Will Not Face the Death Penalty If Extradited
David G Silvers. Cancillería del Ecuador, 18 August 2014 via Wikimedia…
Read MoreApr 17, 2024
Justices Sotomayor and Jackson Issue Dissents Over Supreme Court’s Refusal to Review Two Capital Misconduct Cases
On Monday, April 15, Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor issued dissents over the Supreme Court’s refusal to hear the petitions of two death-sentenced prisoners who alleged official misconduct in their cases. In the first case, Dillion Compton alleged that Texas prosecutors illegally used thirteen of their fifteen peremptory strikes to remove female prospective jurors because of their gender. In the second case, Kurt Michaels argued that California police…
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