Publications & Testimony

As states and coun­ties across the United States are using the death penal­ty with decreas­ing fre­quen­cy, a new report issued by the Fair Punishment Project on August 23 explores the out­lier prac­tices of 16 U.S. coun­ties that are buck­ing the nation­al trend and dis­pro­por­tion­al­ly pur­su­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. These juris­dic­tions, rep­re­sent­ing one-half of one per­cent of all U.S. coun­ties or coun­ty equiv­a­lents, are the only locales in the United States to have imposed…

A recent poll by researcher Craig Haney, a Professor of Psychology at the University of California — Santa Cruz, has found that a​“strong major­i­ty” of Florida respon­dents pre­fer life with­out parole to the death penal­ty for peo­ple con­vict­ed of mur­der, even as many har­bor con­tin­u­ing mis­con­cep­tions about cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment that would pre­dis­pose them to support the…

As his August 24 exe­cu­tion date approach­es, Jeffrey Wood​’s case has gar­nered mount­ing atten­tion from groups and indi­vid­u­als call­ing on the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and Gov. Greg Abbott to com­mute Wood’s sen­tence. These diverse voic­es include a con­ser­v­a­tive Texas state rep­re­sen­ta­tive, a group of evan­gel­i­cal lead­ers, and the edi­to­r­i­al boards of the New York Times, the Washington Post, and several Texas…

Harris County, Texas has sent more peo­ple to death row than any oth­er coun­ty in the United States and Jerry Guerinot (pic­tured) was defense coun­sel for twen­­ty-one of them. His death-sen­­tenced clients includ­ed two who were juve­niles at the time of the crime and anoth­er who was lat­er freed after pros­e­cu­tors dropped charges against him. Labeled by some as​“the worst lawyer in the United States,” in forty years of prac­tice, none of Guerinot’s…

The Equal Justice Initiative has announced plans to con­struct a Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama to com­mem­o­rate the vic­tims of ter­ror lynch­ings in the American South. In a New Yorker pro­file of EJI exec­u­tive direc­tor Bryan Stevenson, Jeffrey Toobin describes EJI’s crim­i­nal defense work and the gen­e­sis of the lynch­ing memo­r­i­al.​“There’s no ques­tion that we have a long his­to­ry of see­ing peo­ple through [a] lens of racial dif­fer­ence. It’s…

Delaware Attorney General Matt Denn (pic­tured) announced on August 15 that his office will not appeal the Delaware Supreme Court’s August 2 deci­sion in Benjamin Rauf v. State of Delaware, which struck down the state’s death penal­ty statute. In Rauf, the court found that Delaware’s cap­i­tal sen­tenc­ing scheme vio­lat­ed the Sixth Amendment, as inter­pret­ed by the U.S. Supreme Court in Hurst v. Florida, by…

A new study of Nebraska’s death penal­ty found that the state spends $14.6 mil­lion per year to main­tain its cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem. The study, The Economic Impact of the Death Penalty on the State of Nebraska: A Taxpayer Burden?, also esti­mates that each death penal­ty pros­e­cu­tion cost Nebraska’s tax­pay­ers about $1.5 mil­lion more than a life with­out parole pros­e­cu­tion. At a press con­fer­ence announc­ing the study, principal…

On August 2, 2016, the Delaware Supreme Court, by a vote of 4 – 1, declared the state’s cap­i­tal sen­tenc­ing pro­ce­dures uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. The deci­sion, in the case of Benjamin Rauf v. State of Delaware, left Delaware with­out a valid death…

Louisiana death row exoneree John Thompson (pic­tured, cen­ter), who was wrong­ly con­vict­ed of two dif­fer­ent New Orleans mur­ders as a result of pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct, has filed a peti­tion with the United States Department of Justice seek­ing an inves­ti­ga­tion of more than 100 cas­es pros­e­cut­ed by for­mer Orleans Parish assis­tant dis­trict attor­ney James Williams. Thompson filed his peti­tion on August 2 under pro­vi­sions of the Law Enforcement…

Leaders of nation­al Latino evan­gel­i­cal groups are call­ing for an end to the death penal­ty, cit­ing both reli­gious con­vic­tions and prac­ti­cal con­cerns about the fair­ness of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Reverend Gabriel Salguero (pic­tured), founder of the Latino Evangelical Coalition, said,​“Given stud­ies on how the death penal­ty is met­ed out, par­tic­u­lar­ly for peo­ple of col­or, if it’s not a lev­el play­ing field, we need to speak out. … The nee­dle has moved for Latinos and…