Publications & Testimony

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…

San Bernardino County, California is one of five Southern California coun­ties that have pro­duced more death sen­tences since 2010 than 99.5% of all U.S. coun­ties. Along with its neigh­bors, Kern County, Riverside County, Orange County, and Los Angeles County, San Bernardino forms a ​“new Death Belt,” a region with high num­bers of death sen­tences marked by overzeal­ous pros­e­cu­tors and poor…

With new­ly dis­cov­ered con­fes­sions and DNA evi­dence point­ing to the prosecution’s chief wit­ness as the actu­al killer, the Florida Supreme Court, on October 27, vacat­ed the cap­i­tal con­vic­tion of death-row pris­on­er Clemente…

Kenya has com­mut­ed the death sen­tences of all 2,747 pris­on­ers on the nation’s death row. On October 24, President Uhuru Kenyatta signed orders spar­ing the lives of 2,655 men and 92 women who had been sen­tenced to death, com­mut­ing their sen­tences to terms of life in prison. While Kenya still autho­rizes the death penal­ty, it has not car­ried out an exe­cu­tion in near­ly 30 years. In August 2009, for­mer President Mwai Kibaki com­mut­ed the death…

Support for the death penal­ty in the United States is at its low­est lev­el since November 1972, accord­ing to a Gallup poll released October 25. Gallup report­ed that 60% of respon­dents said they sup­port cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment — off one per­cent­age point from last year — while oppo­si­tion remained at 37%, match­ing its high­est lev­el since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the death penal­ty in 1972. Support has dropped 9 points since 2007 and 20 points since its peak in 1994. The results reflect the same…

Sherman Brown (pic­tured), a man who was sen­tenced to death in Virginia in 1970 for the mur­der of a 4‑year-old boy, has filed a writ of actu­al inno­cence with the Virginia Supreme Court say­ing that DNA test­ing on recent­ly dis­cov­ered evi­dence clears him of the crime. Brown’s peti­tion states: ​“Recent DNA test­ing demon­strates by clear and con­vinc­ing evi­dence what I have main­tained for over 45 years: that I am inno­cent of this crime. The evi­dence against me at…