Publications & Testimony

One year after the Nebraska leg­is­la­ture vot­ed to repeal the death penal­ty and over­rode a guber­na­to­r­i­al veto of that mea­sure, actions in leg­is­la­tures across the coun­try sug­gest that the state’s efforts sig­nalled a grow­ing move­ment against the death penal­ty by con­ser­v­a­tive leg­is­la­tors and that sup­port for the death penal­ty among Republican leg­is­la­tors is no longer a giv­en. Reporting in The Washington Post, Amber Phillips writes that Republican leg­is­la­tors in ten states spon­sored or…

100 years ago, Jesse Washington, a 17-year-old black farm­hand accused of mur­der­ing his white female employ­er was lynched on the steps of the Waco, Texas cour­t­house (pic­tured), moments after Washington’s tri­al end­ed and only sev­en days after the mur­der had occurred. The grue­some lynch­ing took place in front of law enforce­ment per­son­nel and 15,000 spec­ta­tors, none of whom inter­vened to end the vio­lence. Washington, whom reports indi­cate may have been…

On May 13, the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­ny Pfizer announced that it would impose strict dis­tri­b­u­tion con­trols to block states from obtain­ing and using its med­i­cines in exe­cu­tions. In a state­ment, the com­pa­ny said, ​“Pfizer makes its prod­ucts to enhance and save the lives of the patients we serve. Consistent with these val­ues, Pfizer strong­ly objects to the use of its prod­ucts as lethal injec­tions for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment.” With Pfizer’s announce­ment, every major phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­ny that produces…

More than 12,000 pages of California prison doc­u­ments dis­closed by court order on May 7 reveal prob­lem­at­ic con­duct by state offi­cials and the extra­or­di­nar­i­ly high price tag the state would have paid for lethal injec­tion drugs if it were car­ry­ing out exe­cu­tions. The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, which obtained the doc­u­ments after a six-month legal bat­tle, say they show that the California Department of Correction and Rehabilitation (CDCR) significantly…

Texas’ Third Court of Appeals heard oral argu­ment on May 11 on the state’s appeal of a tri­al court rul­ing requir­ing it to reveal the iden­ti­ty of its lethal injec­tion drug sup­pli­er in a pair of April 2014 exe­cu­tions. The suit, ini­tial­ly brought on behalf of the two exe­cut­ed pris­on­ers, now impli­cates Texas’ Public Information Act. The pris­on­ers’ attor­neys argued that iden­ti­fy­ing the sup­pli­er of pen­to­bar­bi­tal, the drug used by Texas in exe­cu­tions, was nec­es­sary to ver­i­fy that…

UPDATE: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit stayed Madison’s exe­cu­tion, order­ing oral argu­ment on his com­pe­ten­cy claim. Previously: Alabama is prepar­ing to exe­cute Vernon Madison (pic­tured) on May 12, as his lawyers con­tin­ue to press their claim that the 65-year-old pris­on­er is incom­pe­tent to be…

Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Milton Hirsch (pic­tured) ruled on May 9 that Florida’s new death sen­tenc­ing law vio­lates the state’s con­sti­tu­tion. Ruling in the case of Karon Gaiter, who is await­ing a cap­i­tal tri­al, Judge Hirsch said new law’s require­ment that at least 10 jurors agree to the death penal­ty before a defen­dant can be sen­tenced to death vio­lat­ed Florida’s con­sti­tu­tion­al require­ment that all jury ver­dicts must be unan­i­mous. ​“For the ulti­mate decisions…

Just 27% of Houston-area res­i­dents pre­fer the death penal­ty over life sen­tences for those con­vict­ed of first-degree mur­der, accord­ing to a new report by the Kinder Institute for Urban Research at Rice University. Harris County, the largest coun­ty in the Houston met­ro­pol­i­tan area, ​“earned its rep­u­ta­tion as the ​‘death penal­ty cap­i­tal of America,’” the report says, ​“hav­ing exe­cut­ed more peo­ple since 1976 … than any oth­er coun­ty in the nation.” At its peak, Harris County…

Thirty years after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1986 deci­sion in Batson v. Kentucky pro­hib­it­ed the inten­tion­al exclu­sion of prospec­tive jurors on the basis of race, dis­crim­i­na­tion in cap­i­tal jury selec­tion con­tin­ues to plague the admin­is­tra­tion of the death penal­ty across the…

On May 5, the Florida Supreme Court will hear oral argu­ment in the case of Timothy Hurst, whose death sen­tence was over­turned in the U.S. Supreme Court’s deci­sion Hurst v. Florida. The state court must deter­mine whether the high court’s rul­ing, which struck down Florida’s sen­tenc­ing scheme, enti­tles Hurst to a new sen­tenc­ing hear­ing, reduces his sen­tence to life with­out parole, or requires some oth­er out­come. The case may also decide…