Publications & Testimony

Fifty years ago today, Thurgood Marshall (pictured) was confirmed as the nation’s first African-American Supreme Court Justice. Marshall’s legacy is indelibly linked to his historic victory in 1954 as counsel in Brown v. Board of Education, breaking down the barriers of ​“separate but equal” segregated public education. But he is equally associated with his representation of capital defendants in racially charged cases in the Jim Crow South and his longstanding belief — first articulated in a…

A Texas appeals court has stayed the August 30 execution of Steven Long (pictured) to provide him an opportunity to litigate a claim that he is ineligible for the death penalty because of intellectual disability. On August 21, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals issued the stay and remanded Long’s case to a Dallas County trial court, directing the court to reconsider his claim of intellectual disability in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s March 2017 ruling in Moore v. Texas. The Texas courts…

Oklahoma will not execute anyone in 2017 and, without an execution protocol in place, cannot seek any execution dates through at least January 2018, marking the longest period of time between executions in the state in the modern era of capital punishment. As part of an agreement in a federal lawsuit challenging the state’s execution procedures, the Oklahoma Attorney General’s office may not request execution dates for any prisoner for at least five months after the state adopts a new execution…

In a 5 – 2 decision that left both proponents and opponents of the death penalty declaring victory, the Supreme Court of California has upheld the constitutionality of Proposition 66, a voter initiative intended to speed up death-penalty appeals and executions, but severely limited the scope of its core provisions. In Briggs v. Brown, the court on August 24 sustained portions of the measure that shifted which court will hear capital cases, increased the pool of death-penalty appeal lawyers by…

As Florida prepared to execute Mark Asay (pictured) on August 24, the state’s death-penalty practices came under fire from human rights groups, criminal justice reformers, and one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies. Asay was executed despite the Florida Supreme Court’s recognition that his death sentence — imposed by a judge after three jurors had voted for life — was unconstitutionally imposed and that the court mistakenly believed both of Asay’s victims were black when it upheld his…

In a case that led to a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision on judicial bias, a divided Pennsylvania Supreme Court on August 22 upheld a lower court’s order overturning the death penalty imposed on Terrance Williams (pictured) for the murder of a Philadelphia church deacon. The court split 2 – 2 on the outcome of a new appeal that had been ordered by the U.S. Supreme Court after former Philadelphia District Attorney Ronald Castille — who had personally authorized seeking the death penalty against…

Calling a sentence of death ​“the ultimate, permanent punishment,” Missouri Governor Eric Greitens (pictured) has stayed the execution of Marcellus Williams ​“in light of new information” that Williams’s lawyers say demonstrate he is innocent of the murder of former St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Felisha Gayle. Hours before Williams’s scheduled August 22 execution, Greitens issued an executive order that granted Williams a stay and created a Board of Inquiry to review ​“newly discovered DNA…

Citing ​“relentless non-compliance” with court orders and ​“chronic obstructionism” by a prosecution team it says ​“has effectively compromised” Scott Dekraai’s rights to due process and a fair penalty trial, a California trial court has barred prosecutors from pursuing the death penalty in the worst mass killing in Orange County history. In a scathing opinion on August 18, Judge Thomas M. Goethals (pictured) — who had disqualified the entire Orange County District Attorney’s office from the case…

The states of Arkansas and Nevada have announced that they have obtained new supplies of execution drugs that will permit them to carry out two executions in what critics have called questionable circumstances. On August 4, Arkansas obtained a supply of midazolam — the controversial drug used in botched executions in at least four states — paying $250 in cash to an undisclosed supplier for 40 vials of the drug. Then, on August 17, Attorney General Leslie Rutledge asked Governor Asa Hutchinson to…

Merck Chief Executive Officer Kenneth C. Frazier (pictured) resigned from the president’s American Manufacturing Council on August 14, saying “[a]s CEO of Merck and as a matter of personal conscience, I feel a responsibility to take a stand against intolerance and extremism.” In a statement posted on Merck’s Twitter account, Frazier said: ​“Our country’s strength stems from its diversity and the contributions made by men and women of different faiths, races, sexual orientations and political…