Publications & Testimony

Pfizer​’s recent announce­ment that it was tight­en­ing con­trols against what it calls the mis­use of its med­i­cines in exe­cu­tions high­lights an on-going strug­gle between states des­per­ate for exe­cu­tion drugs and a med­ical com­mu­ni­ty that believes its involve­ment in the lethal injec­tion process vio­lates its med­ical and cor­po­rate mis­sions and the eth­i­cal stan­dards of the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal and health pro­fes­sions. As Pfizer and near­ly two dozen oth­er phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies have ended…

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has grant­ed a stay of exe­cu­tion to Charles Flores (pic­tured) to per­mit him to lit­i­gate a claim that pros­e­cu­tors uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly con­vict­ed and sen­tenced him to death by using unre­li­able hyp­not­i­cal­ly refreshed tes­ti­mo­ny. Texas had sched­uled Flores’ exe­cu­tion for June 2. Flores, who is Latino, was con­vict­ed in 1999 of mur­der­ing a 64-year-old white woman in sub­ur­ban Dallas, and was sen­tenced to death. Prosecutors presented…

In a 5 – 2 deci­sion issued May 26, the Connecticut Supreme Court reaf­firmed its August 2015 deci­sion in State v. Santiago that the death penal­ty vio­lates Connecticut’s state…

The Nebraska Supreme Court heard oral argu­ment on May 25 in a chal­lenge to the pro­posed November ref­er­en­dum that could reverse the state leg­is­la­ture’s 2015 repeal of the death penal­ty (vote results pic­tured left). Christy and Richard Hargesheimer, who oppose the death penal­ty, are chal­leng­ing the doc­u­ments sub­mit­ted by Nebraskans for the Death Penalty, the orga­ni­za­tion sup­port­ing the ref­er­en­dum, on the grounds that the group vio­lat­ed state…

As California pros­e­cu­tors and law enforce­ment offi­cials sub­mit­ted sig­na­tures back­ing a bal­lot ini­tia­tive intend­ed to speed up the state’s dys­func­tion­al death penal­ty appeals process, a coali­tion of inno­cence advo­cates and wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed exonerees warned that the pro­pos­al will sub­stan­tial­ly increase the risk that California will exe­cute an inno­cent per­son. The ini­tia­tive, spon­sored by dis­trict attor­neys with major fund­ing by the state’s prison guards’ union, would…

I. Beverly Lake, Jr. — a staunch sup­port­er of North Carolina​’s death penal­ty dur­ing his years as a State Senator and who, as a for­mer Chief Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court, repeat­ed­ly vot­ed to uphold death sen­tences — has changed his stance on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. In a recent piece for The Huffington Post, Lake said he not only sup­port­ed cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment as a State Senator, he ​“vig­or­ous­ly advo­cat­ed” for it and ​“cast my vote at appro­pri­ate times to uphold…

Cert. grant­ed May 26, 2015 as Foster v. HumphreyArgument: Nov. 2, 2015Decided: May 23,…

On May 23, 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court over­turned the con­vic­tion and death sen­tence of Timothy Foster (pic­tured) because Georgia pros­e­cu­tors improp­er­ly exer­cised their dis­cre­tionary jury strikes on the basis of race to exclude African American jurors. The vote was 7 – 1, with Justice Thomas the lone dis­senter. Foster is now enti­tled to a new…

Following sev­en months of inves­ti­ga­tion into the caus­es of Oklahoma​’s botched exe­cu­tion of Charles Warner using an unau­tho­rized exe­cu­tion drug and its near-exe­cu­tion of Richard Glossip with the same wrong drug, an Oklahoma grand jury issued a report on May 19 iden­ti­fy­ing a wide range of what it char­ac­ter­ized as ​“neg­li­gent,” ​“care­less,” and in some instances ​“reck­less” con­duct by state offi­cials that devi­at­ed from the state’s…

U.S. District Court Judge Neil Wake ruled on May 18 that a lethal injec­tion chal­lenge brought by Arizona death row pris­on­ers may move for­ward, pre­vent­ing Arizona from car­ry­ing out any exe­cu­tions before the report­ed expi­ra­tion date of its sup­ply of a key exe­cu­tion drug. Arizona has said that it is unable to replen­ish its sup­ply of mida­zo­lam, an anti-anx­i­ety med­ica­tion that a num­ber of states have used as a seda­tive in mul­ti-drug lethal injec­tion pro­ce­dures. The death row…