Publications & Testimony

The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles announced on March 31 that it had denied clemen­cy to Joshua Bishop. Bishop had asked that his death sen­tence be reduced to life with­out parole because his co-defen­dant, who was near­ly twice Bishop’s age at the time of the crime, and had a his­to­ry of vio­lent crime while Bishop did not, was giv­en a plea deal result­ing in a life sen­tence. Bishop is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed in Georgia on March 31. Seven of the twelve…

A group of promi­nent Oklahomans have announced the cre­ation of a 12-mem­ber Oklahoma Death Penalty Review Commission to con­duct a com­pre­hen­sive review of the state’s death penal­ty. The all-vol­un­teer com­mis­sion will be led by three co-chairs, for­mer Governor Brad Henry (pic­tured), retired Court of Criminal Appeals Judge Reta Strubhar, and for­mer U.S. Magistrate Judge Andy…

In one week, courts in unre­lat­ed cas­es have grant­ed relief to two Alabama death row inmates because of prosecutorial…

In an inter­view with The Marshall Project, Texas death penal­ty juror Sven Berger says he would not have vot­ed to sen­tence cap­i­tal defen­dant Paul Storey to death in 2008 had he known about Storey’s ​“bor­der­line intel­lec­tu­al func­tion­ing,” his­to­ry of depres­sion, and oth­er evi­dence that Storey’s lawyer failed to present at tri­al. Berger and 11 oth­er Texas jurors unan­i­mous­ly vot­ed to sen­tence Storey to death, but Berger says that at the…

A South Carolina fed­er­al dis­trict court has vacat­ed the death sen­tence imposed on Johnny Bennett, an African-American defen­dant con­demned by an all-white jury after pros­e­cu­tor Donald Myers (pic­tured) had ​“made mul­ti­ple state­ments clear­ly cal­cu­lat­ed to excite the jury with racial imagery and…

Cole County, Missouri Circuit Judge Jon Beetem ruled on March 21 that Missouri must release the names of phar­ma­cies that have pro­vid­ed lethal injec­tion drugs for exe­cu­tions. Judge Beetem ruled in favor of the ACLU of Missouri and sev­er­al media orga­ni­za­tions that had filed three sep­a­rate suits against the state. The media plain­tiffs includ­ed the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The Kansas City Star, the Springfield News-Leader,…

American Bar Association President Paulette Brown has sent a let­ter to California Govenor Jerry Brown urg­ing him to grant a reprieve to death row inmate Kevin Cooper to per­mit a full inves­ti­ga­tion of Cooper’s pos­si­ble inno­cence. The ABA President wrote: ​“Mr. Cooper’s arrest, pros­e­cu­tion, and con­vic­tion are marred by evi­dence of racial bias, police mis­con­duct, evi­dence tam­per­ing, sup­pres­sion of excul­pa­to­ry infor­ma­tion, lack of qual­i­ty defense coun­sel, and a…

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5^th Circuit says that ​“Adam Kelly Ward (pic­tured) has been afflict­ed with men­tal ill­ness his entire life.” Yet Texas will exe­cute him on March 22 unless the U.S. Supreme Court grants him a stay to review his case. Ward’s lawyers argue that the exe­cu­tion of a per­son who is severe­ly men­tal­ly ill con­sti­tutes cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment and that, for that rea­son, Ward should not be exe­cut­ed. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals…

Baptist ethi­cist and the­olo­gian Dr. Roger E. Olson (pic­tured) recent­ly issued a call ​“for Christian church­es to pub­licly stand against the death penal­ty for Christian rea­sons.” A pro­fes­sor of Christian Theology and Ethics at Baylor University’s George W. Truett Theological Seminary, Dr. Olson writes in an essay for the the­ol­o­gy web­site Patheos​.com that ​“authen­tic Christians must oppose the death penal­ty.” He says that, while “[t]here are many sec­u­lar rea­sons to abol­ish the death penalty,”…

A new arti­cle by Cornell Law School Professor John Blume (pic­tured) and Lindsey Vann of Justice 360 ana­lyzes South Carolina​’s expe­ri­ence with the death penal­ty over the last 40 years and argues that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the Palmetto State con­tin­ues to exhib­it the same arbi­trary and dis­crim­i­na­to­ry fea­tures that led the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down the death penal­ty in 1972. Using Justice Stephen Breyer’s dis­sent in…