Publications & Testimony

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…

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…