Publications & Testimony

Isaiah McCoy (pic­tured), a for­mer Delaware death row inmate, was exon­er­at­ed on January 19, 2017, when a judge acquit­ted him at a retri­al. He is the 157^th per­son exon­er­at­ed from death row in the United States, the first in 2017, and the first in…

Inspired by the case of Robin ​“Rocky” Myers (pic­tured), an intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled and pos­si­bly inno­cent Alabama death row pris­on­er whom an elect­ed state judge sen­tenced to death despite a 9 – 3 jury rec­om­men­da­tion for life, a pan­el of faith lead­ers gath­ered in Montgomery, Alabama to dis­cuss reli­gious views on the death penal­ty and the inter­sec­tion of faith and jus­tice. Before the dis­cus­sion began, the faith lead­ers and the audi­ence viewed a…

On January 17, 2017, President Barack Obama (pic­tured) com­mut­ed the death sen­tences of Abelardo Arboleda Ortiz, a fed­er­al death row pris­on­er, and Dwight Loving, a mil­i­tary death row pris­on­er. The two men were among 209 com­mu­ta­tions and 64 par­dons announced by the White House on the 17^th. Ortiz’s lawyers sought clemen­cy from the President on the grounds that Ortiz was intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled, his right to con­sular noti­fi­ca­tion under the Vienna…

With the sup­port of a bipar­ti­san group of state offi­cials and leg­is­la­tors, Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson (pic­tured) and Governor Jay Inslee have pro­posed leg­is­la­tion to repeal the state’s death penal­ty and replace it with a sen­tence of life with­out parole. At a news con­fer­ence announc­ing the bill, Ferguson, a Democrat, was joined by for­mer Attorney General Rob McKenna, a Republican, in call­ing for abo­li­tion. The bill will be…

Ricky Gray (pic­tured), who is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed on January 18, is seek­ing clemen­cy from Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, and his clemen­cy peti­tion has been joined by a diverse group of men­tal health pro­fes­sion­als and the Virginia Catholic Conference. A let­ter signed by more than 50 men­tal health pro­fes­sion­als, includ­ing two for­mer com­mis­sion­ers of the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services, urges McAuliffe to commute…

Nearly two-thirds of death row pris­on­ers in five Florida coun­ties whose cas­es were stud­ied by Harvard University’s Fair Punishment Project suf­fer from seri­ous men­tal impair­ments. According to a report released by the project on January 12, 2017, the Florida Supreme Court’s December 2016 rul­ing in Mosley v. State requires recon­sid­er­a­tion of the sen­tences imposed on approx­i­mate­ly 150 peo­ple on Florida’s death row who were sen­tenced to death after the…

Christopher Wilkins (pic­tured) is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed in Texas on January 11, even as he has a peti­tion pend­ing before the U.S. Supreme Court argu­ing that he has been improp­er­ly denied the oppor­tu­ni­ty to devel­op and present evi­dence that he suf­fers from significant cognitive…

Newly-elect­ed Denver, Colorado District Attorney Beth McCann (pic­tured), sworn into office on January 10, 2017, has said that her admin­is­tra­tion will not seek the death penal­ty. Asked by 9News, Denver’s NBC affil­i­ate, whether Denver was ​“done with the death penal­ty,” McCann said: ​“We are under my admin­is­tra­tion. I don’t think that the state should be in the busi­ness of killing…

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…