Publications & Testimony

Directed by the U.S. Supreme Court to recon­sid­er its rul­ings uphold­ing the death sen­tences imposed upon four Alabama defen­dants, the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed three of the death sen­tences on December 16. The state court ruled that the death sen­tences imposed upon Ronnie Kirksey, Corey Wimbley, and Ryan Gerald Russell do not vio­late the Supreme Court’s January 16, 2016 decision in…

On December 15, the Delaware Supreme Court ruled in Powell v. State that death-row pris­on­er Derrick Powell will get the ben­e­fit of its August 2016 deci­sion in Rauf v. State declar­ing Delaware’s death sen­tenc­ing statute uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. The court direct­ed that Powell be resen­tenced to life with­out parole, in a rul­ing that also paves the way for resen­tenc­ing Delaware’s twelve oth­er death row prisoners to…

Juan Cartagena (pic­tured), President and General Counsel of LatinoJustice PRLDEF (for­mer­ly the Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund), says there is ​“a grow­ing under­stand­ing” among Latinos in Florida and across the coun­try ​“that the death penal­ty is bro­ken and it can’t be fixed.” In an op-ed for the Orlando Sentinel, Cartagena explains the rea­sons for Latino oppo­si­tion to the death penal­ty, espe­cial­ly in Florida, which has a large Latino pop­u­la­tion and is home to…

After a two-week long ​“exten­sive hear­ing regard­ing the unre­li­a­bil­i­ty and arbi­trari­ness of the death penal­ty sys­tem, the exces­sive delay involved in exe­cu­tions, and the grow­ing decline in the use of the death penal­ty,” U.S. District Court Judge Geoffrey Crawford (pic­tured) ruled in the case of U.S. v. Donald Fell that the Federal Death Penalty Act (“FDPA”) ​“falls short of the [con­sti­tu­tion­al] stan­dard … for iden­ti­fy­ing defen­dants who meet…

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…