Publications & Testimony

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…

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Kentucky’s recen­t­­ly-formed Criminal Justice Policy Assessment Council will be exam­in­ing the state’s crim­i­nal code, and is expect­ed to exam­ine a wide range of crim­i­nal jus­tice issues — includ­ing the death penal­ty — in the first major over­haul of Kentucky’s crim­i­nal code since the 1970s. The coun­cil, which was formed by Gov. Matt Bevin, includes leg­is­la­tors, judges, crim­i­nal jus­tice experts, and reli­gious lead­ers, charged with pro­duc­ing a list of…

Five groups, rep­re­sent­ing defense lawyers, for­mer pros­e­cu­tors, and orga­ni­za­tions devot­ed to pro­tect­ing con­sti­tu­tion­al lib­er­ties have filed ami­cus briefs in the U.S. Supreme Court in sup­port of Texas death row pris­on­er Duane Buck. Buck was sen­tenced to death when a psy­chi­a­trist pre­sent­ed by his own lawyer said he posed a greater poten­tial dan­ger to soci­ety because he is Black, and the case attained wide­spread notoriety after…

A new sur­vey con­duct­ed by SoonerPoll has found that while three-quar­ters of like­ly Oklahoma vot­ers say they sup­port the death penal­ty in the­o­ry, a major­i­ty (53%) sup­port abol­ish­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment and replac­ing it with a sen­tence of life with­out parole, plus resti­tu­tion to vic­tims’ fam­i­lies. Among every polit­i­cal affil­i­a­tion, more sup­port­ed the plan to replace the death penal­ty than favored keep­ing it, with a major­i­ty of Democrats…

Distribution restric­tions put in place by major phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies in the United States against mis­use of their med­i­cines and export reg­u­la­tions insti­tut­ed by the European Union have made it increas­ing­ly dif­fi­cult for states to obtain sup­plies of drugs for use in exe­cu­tions. However, despite these restric­tions, some states have obtained phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal prod­ucts man­u­fac­tured by these com­pa­nies for use in…

Lawyers for Jeffery Wood (pic­tured), a Texas death row pris­on­er who is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed August 24 despite undis­put­ed evi­dence that he has nev­er killed any­one, have filed a new peti­tion in state court chal­leng­ing his death sen­tence on mul­ti­ple grounds. They argue that Wood can­not be sub­ject to the death penal­ty because he nei­ther killed nor intend­ed for any­one to be killed and was not even aware the rob­bery in which…

The Delaware Supreme Court on August 2 declared the state’s cap­i­tal sen­tenc­ing pro­ce­dures uncon­sti­tu­tion­al, leav­ing Delaware with­out a valid death penal­ty statute. In the case of Benjamin Rauf v. State of Delaware, the court held that Delaware’s death sen­tenc­ing pro­ce­dures vio­late the con­sti­tu­tion­al prin­ci­ples recent­ly set forth by the U.S. Supreme Court’s January 2016 deci­sion in Hurst v. Florida.