Publications & Testimony

U.S. District Court Judge Richard M. Gergel grant­ed a request on November 28 from Dylann Roof (pic­tured), the 22-year-old charged with the mur­ders of nine mem­bers of the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, to rep­re­sent him­self in his fed­er­al cap­i­tal tri­al. Judge Gergel described Roof’s deci­sion as​“strate­gi­cal­ly unwise,” but said,​“It is a deci­sion you have the right to make.” A crim­i­nal defen­dan­t’s right to…

Timothy Shriver (pic­tured), the Chairman of the Special Olympics, has called on the U.S. Supreme Court to end Texas’​“use of stig­ma­tiz­ing stereo­types” in deter­min­ing whether a defen­dant has Intellectual Disability and is there­fore inel­i­gi­ble for exe­cu­tion. On November 29, the Court will hear argu­ment in Moore v. Texas, a case chal­leng­ing Texas’ use of the​“Briseño fac­tors” — a set of…

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has upheld a fed­er­al dis­trict court’s deci­sion order­ing a new sen­tenc­ing hear­ing for Johnny Bennett, a black man who was sen­tenced to death by an all-white South Carolina jury in a tri­al taint­ed by a pros­e­cu­tor’s racially-inflammatory…

Los Angeles County, California is the home of the nation’s largest death row, one that sta­tis­tics show con­tin­ues to rapid­ly grow. In January 2013, Los Angeles was respon­si­ble for more death row pris­on­ers than any oth­er coun­ty in the United States, and it has ranked as one of the two most pro­lif­ic coun­ties in impos­ing new death sen­tences each year since. The 31 death sen­tences imposed in the coun­ty between 2010 and 2015 are more than any…

In 1986, California vot­ers removed Rose Bird, the state’s first female supreme court chief jus­tice, from office after con­ser­v­a­tive groups spent more than $10 mil­lion in a recall effort that por­trayed her as​“soft on crime,” empha­siz­ing her court opin­ions over­turn­ing death sen­tences that had been uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly imposed. Ten years lat­er, Tennessee Supreme Court Justice Penny White lost a reten­tion elec­tion after death penalty…

The Louisiana Supreme Court has over­turned the con­vic­tion of Rodricus Crawford (pic­tured) and ordered that he be giv­en a new tri­al in a con­tro­ver­sial death penal­ty case that attract­ed nation­al atten­tion amid evi­dence of race dis­crim­i­na­tion, pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al excess, and…

A new study by Lewis & Clark Law School and Seattle University that exam­ined the costs of hun­dreds of aggra­vat­ed mur­der and mur­der cas­es in Oregon has con­clud­ed that​“main­tain­ing the death penal­ty incurs a sig­nif­i­cant finan­cial bur­den on Oregon tax­pay­ers.” The researchers found that the aver­age tri­al and incar­cer­a­tion costs of an Oregon mur­der case that results in a death penal­ty are almost dou­ble those in a mur­der case that results in…

Jefferson County, Alabama is among both the 2% of coun­ties that account for more than half of all exe­cu­tions in the U.S. and are respon­si­ble for more than half of all pris­on­ers on death row across the coun­try. It led the state in new death sen­tences from 2010 – 2015, putting more peo­ple on death row than 99.5% of U.S. coun­ties. All five of the defen­dants sen­tenced to death in those…

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…

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…