Publications & Testimony

California death penal­ty oppo­nents filed a tax­pay­er suit on November 9 to block Proposition 66—the bal­lot ini­tia­tive pro­mot­ed as speed­ing up the state’s exe­cu­tion process — from going into effect. The suit was filed by for­mer El Dorado County super­vi­sor Ron Briggs (pic­tured) — who co-authored the mea­sure to rein­state California’s death penal­ty in 1978 — and for­mer California Attorney General John van de Camp. California vot­ers nar­row­ly approved Proposition 66,…

Change may be in the off­ing in Hillsborough County, Florida after vot­ers oust­ed incum­bent State Attorney Mark Ober on November 8 and replaced him with a reform can­di­date, Andrew Warren…

Prosecutors in three coun­ties known for their out­lier prac­tices on the death penal­ty were defeat­ed by chal­lengers run­ning on reform plat­forms, while vot­ers in Oregon and Washington re-elect­ed gov­er­nors who act­ed to halt exe­cu­tions. In Hillsborough County, Florida, Democrat Andrew Warren defeat­ed Republican incum­bent Mark Ober (pic­tured, l.). Warren pledged to seek the death penal­ty less often and estab­lish a unit to uncov­er wrong­ful con­vic­tions. In Harris…

Voters in three states approved pro-death penal­ty bal­lot ques­tions Tuesday, while in a fourth, vot­ers turned back an effort to oust four Justices who had been crit­i­cized for grant­i­ng defen­dants relief in cap­i­tal cas­es. Amid wide­spread agree­ment that California​’s death penal­ty sys­tem is bro­ken, the state’s vot­ers reject­ed Proposition 62, which would have abol­ished the state’s death penal­ty and replaced it with life with­out pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole plus…

Two recent stud­ies exam­in­ing the effects of Batson v. Kentucky found that, despite the Supreme Court’s ban on racial dis­crim­i­na­tion in jury selec­tion, Black jurors con­tin­ue to be dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly removed from jury pools in North and South…

Pinellas County, Florida ranks among the 2% of coun­ties respon­si­ble for more than half of all pris­on­ers on death rows across the United States and among the 2% of coun­ties respon­si­ble for more than half of all exe­cu­tions con­duct­ed in this coun­try since 1977. The five death sen­tences imposed in Pinellas between 2010 and 2015 also place it, along with three oth­er Florida coun­ties, among the 16 U.S. coun­ties with the high­est num­ber of new death…

The U.S. Supreme Court has stayed the exe­cu­tion of Tommy Arthur, who was sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed in Alabama at 6:00 p.m. Central Time on November 3. Around 10:30 p.m. Eastern, the Court first issued a tem­po­rary stay of exe­cu­tion through Circuit Justice Clarence Thomas ​“pend­ing fur­ther order” of the Court. Anticipating a sec­ond rul­ing by the Court, Alabama con­tin­ued prepa­ra­tions for the exe­cu­tion. Then, just before mid­night in Washington, the Court issued a…

The edi­to­r­i­al boards of Oklahoma​’s two major news­pa­pers and the lead­er­ship of the Oklahoma Conference of Churches are all urg­ing vot­ers to vote no on State Question 776, which would enshrine the death penal­ty in the Oklahoma con­sti­tu­tion and remove from state courts the pow­er to declare the death penal­ty cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment. The Oklahoman called SQ 776 ​“unnece­sary,” say­ing it, ​“should be reject­ed by Oklahoma vot­ers on Nov. 8.” The Tulsa World also…

Former Ohio death row pris­on­er Kevin Keith (pic­tured) has filed a motion seek­ing a new tri­al to clear his name after evi­dence has emerged of sys­temic bias and errat­ic behav­ior by the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI) sci­en­tist whose tes­ti­mo­ny helped put him on death row. Keith and James Parsons, who also was con­vict­ed of mur­der and was sen­tenced to a term of 15 years to life in prison, have chal­lenged the work of BCI ana­lyst G. Michele Yezzo, who tes­ti­fied at dozens…

Courting Death: The Supreme Court and Capital Punishment by Harvard Law Professor Carol S. Steiker and University of Texas Law Professor Jordan M. Steiker exam­ines the U.S. Supreme Court’s ​“exten­sive — and ulti­mate­ly failed — effort to reform and ratio­nal­ize the prac­tice of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the United States through top-down, con­sti­tu­tion­al reg­u­la­tion.” The authors argue that sig­nif­i­cant con­sti­tu­tion­al flaws per­sist in the death penal­ty sys­tem despite the Court’s…