Publications & Testimony

In the span of one week, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review peti­tions from six death row pris­on­ers, deny­ing them relief in their cas­es. The peti­tion­ers raised issues relat­ed to DNA pro­ce­dures, con­flict of coun­sel, a dis­put­ed guilty plea, juror bias, judi­cial over­ride, and a pre­vi­ous­ly botched exe­cu­tion attempt. In two of the cas­es, the Court allowed exe­cu­tions to pro­ceed in Georgia and Alabama. The case of Ronald Smith left the Court dead­locked 4 – 4, with enough votes…

Miami-Dade County has his­tor­i­cal­ly been a sig­nif­i­cant con­trib­u­tor to Florida​’s death row and large pro­por­tions of its recent death sen­tences raise seri­ous con­sti­tu­tion­al ques­tions about the prac­tices that result in death ver­dicts and the char­ac­ter­is­tics of the defen­dants who are sen­tenced to death. Miami-Dade imposed five death sen­tences between 2010 and 2015, plac­ing it among the 16 coun­ties that pro­duced more death sen­tences than 99.5% of all U.S.

After a divid­ed U.S. Supreme Court twice tem­porar­i­ly halt­ed the exe­cu­tion of Ronald Bert Smith, Jr. (pic­tured), Alabama put Smith to death on December 8 in a 34-minute exe­cu­tion in which Smith heaved, coughed, clenched his left fist, and opened one eye dur­ing one 13-minute…

Since 1973, juries in Texas have had to deter­mine whether a defen­dant presents a future dan­ger to soci­ety before impos­ing a death sen­tence. But while they have found that each of the 244 men and women cur­rent­ly on the state’s death row pos­es ​“a con­tin­u­ing threat to soci­ety,” experts argue that juries can­not accu­rate­ly pre­dict a defendant’s…

At a December 6 – 7 nation­al sum­mit on severe men­tal ill­ness and the death penal­ty, the American Bar Association Death Penalty Due Process Review Project released a new white paper that it hopes will pro­vide law mak­ers with infor­ma­tion and pol­i­cy analy­sis to ​“help states pass laws that will estab­lish clear stan­dards and process­es to pre­vent the exe­cu­tion of those with severe men­tal ill­ness.” The ABA does not take a posi­tion on the death penal­ty itself, but believes that…

Alabama is set to exe­cute Ronald Smith on December 8, although the sen­tenc­ing jury in his case rec­om­mend­ed that he be sen­tenced to life. Under a prac­tice that is no longer per­mit­ted in any oth­er state, Smith’s judge over­rode the jury’s sen­tenc­ing rec­om­men­da­tion and imposed a death sen­tence. As his exe­cu­tion approach­es, Smith has filed a peti­tion in the U.S. Supreme chal­leng­ing the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of Alabama’s law. He argues it vio­lates both his right to…

UPDATE: The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles denied Sallie’s request for clemen­cy. PREVIOUSLY: Georgia plans to exe­cute William Sallie (pic­tured) on December 6 in a case his attor­neys argue is taint­ed by egre­gious juror mis­con­duct that no court has con­sid­ered because Sallie missed a fil­ing dead­line dur­ing a peri­od in which he was unrep­re­sent­ed and Georgia pro­vid­ed him no right to a lawyer. It is a case that Andrew Cohen, a Fellow at the…

With 55 exe­cu­tions since the 1970s, Dallas County, Texas, ranks sec­ond among all U.S. coun­ties — behind only Harris County (Houston), Texas — in the num­ber of pris­on­ers it has put to death. It is also among the 2% of coun­ties that account for more than half of all pris­on­ers on death row across the coun­try, and pro­duced sev­en new death sen­tences and one resen­tence between 2010 and 2015, more than 99.5% of all U.S. coun­ties dur­ing that…

Federal cap­i­tal defen­dants are dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly sen­tenced to death in Missouri com­pared to oth­er states, with 14.5% of the 62 pris­on­ers cur­rent­ly on fed­er­al death row hav­ing been pros­e­cut­ed in Missouri’s fed­er­al dis­trict courts. By con­trast, a DPIC analy­sis of FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Statistics shows that Missouri account­ed for only 2.26% of mur­ders in the United States between 1988, when the cur­rent fed­er­al death penal­ty statute was adopt­ed, and 2012. Not surprisingly,…