Publications & Testimony

Saying that ​“race plays a deci­sive role in who lives and who dies” in cap­i­tal cas­es in the United States, the National Black Caucus of State Legislators (NBCSL) vot­ed at its 40^th annu­al con­fer­ence on December 14, 2016, to adopt its first ever res­o­lu­tion call­ing for the abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty. The res­o­lu­tion states that ​“racial bias in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem, includ­ing the death penal­ty and its appli­ca­tion, is an undis­put­ed fact,” and notes that ​“from slav­ery to…

Despite a sharp drop in exe­cu­tions, the United States ranked sixth among the world’s exe­cu­tion­ers in 2016 behind only China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Pakistan, accord­ing to a report by the British-based inter­na­tion­al human rights group, Reprieve. Maya Foa, a direc­tor of Reprieve, said “[i]t is alarm­ing that coun­tries with close links to the UK and [European Union] con­tin­ue to occu­py the ranks of the world’s most pro­lif­ic exe­cu­tion­ers in 2016.” Questions of inno­cence, exe­cu­tion of…

In a new set­back to efforts to restart exe­cu­tions in California, the state’s Office of Administrative Law (OAL) has reject­ed the new lethal injec­tion pro­to­col pro­posed by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. On December 28, 2016, the OAL, which is respon­si­ble for review­ing reg­u­la­to­ry changes pro­posed in California, issued a 25-page deci­sion of dis­ap­proval, cit­ing incon­sis­ten­cies, inad­e­quate jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for cer­tain parts of the pro­pos­al, and a failure…

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice filed suit on January 3, 2017 against the fed­er­al Food and Drug Administration (FDA) over the FDA’s con­tin­ued deten­tion of drugs Texas had attempt­ed to import for…

Citing ​“seri­ous con­cerns about the use of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the state of Washington,” Governor Jay Inslee (pic­tured) grant­ed a reprieve to Clark Richard Elmore, whom the state’s Department of Corrections had sched­uled for exe­cu­tion on January 19, 2017, and urged the state leg­is­la­ture to abol­ish cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the state. The December 29, 2016 war­rant of reprieve was the first reprieve order issued under a mora­to­ri­um…

When Missouri exe­cut­ed Jeff Ferguson in 2014 for the rape and mur­der of Kelli Hall, her father said the Hall fam­i­ly ​“believed the myth that Ferguson’s exe­cu­tion would close our emo­tion­al wounds.” At that time, Jim Hall told reporters ​“It’s over, thank God.” But, he now says, it was­n’t. In an op-ed in the Columbia Daily Tribune, Mr. Hall writes that his fam­i­ly has ​“come to deeply regret [Ferguson’s] exe­cu­tion” and…

On December 22, 2016, Pennsylvania pros­e­cu­tors dropped first-degree mur­der charges against two for­mer Pennsylvania death row pris­on­ers who have assert­ed their inno­cence for decades. In court­rooms 100 miles apart, Tyrone Moore and James Dennis entered no-con­test pleas to charges of third-degree mur­der, avoid­ing retri­als on the charges that had ini­tial­ly sent the men to death row and paving the way for their…