Publications & Testimony

American Bar Association President Paulette Brown has sent a let­ter to California Govenor Jerry Brown urg­ing him to grant a reprieve to death row inmate Kevin Cooper to per­mit a full inves­ti­ga­tion of Cooper’s pos­si­ble inno­cence. The ABA President wrote: ​“Mr. Cooper’s arrest, pros­e­cu­tion, and con­vic­tion are marred by evi­dence of racial bias, police mis­con­duct, evi­dence tam­per­ing, sup­pres­sion of excul­pa­to­ry infor­ma­tion, lack of qual­i­ty defense coun­sel, and a…

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5^th Circuit says that ​“Adam Kelly Ward (pic­tured) has been afflict­ed with men­tal ill­ness his entire life.” Yet Texas will exe­cute him on March 22 unless the U.S. Supreme Court grants him a stay to review his case. Ward’s lawyers argue that the exe­cu­tion of a per­son who is severe­ly men­tal­ly ill con­sti­tutes cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment and that, for that rea­son, Ward should not be exe­cut­ed. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals…

Baptist ethi­cist and the­olo­gian Dr. Roger E. Olson (pic­tured) recent­ly issued a call ​“for Christian church­es to pub­licly stand against the death penal­ty for Christian rea­sons.” A pro­fes­sor of Christian Theology and Ethics at Baylor University’s George W. Truett Theological Seminary, Dr. Olson writes in an essay for the the­ol­o­gy web­site Patheos​.com that ​“authen­tic Christians must oppose the death penal­ty.” He says that, while “[t]here are many sec­u­lar rea­sons to abol­ish the death penalty,”…

A new arti­cle by Cornell Law School Professor John Blume (pic­tured) and Lindsey Vann of Justice 360 ana­lyzes South Carolina​’s expe­ri­ence with the death penal­ty over the last 40 years and argues that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the Palmetto State con­tin­ues to exhib­it the same arbi­trary and dis­crim­i­na­to­ry fea­tures that led the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down the death penal­ty in 1972. Using Justice Stephen Breyer’s dis­sent in…

In a divid­ed 4 – 3 deci­sion, the Ohio Supreme Court on March 16, 2016 autho­rized the state to try for a sec­ond time to exe­cute death row inmate Romell Broom (pic­tured, after the state’s failed first attempt to exe­cute him). The court major­i­ty held that a sec­ond exe­cu­tion attempt would not vio­late con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­tec­tions against twice plac­ing a defen­dant in jeop­ardy of life, nor con­sti­tute cru­el and unusual…

United States District Court Judge Nicholas Garaufis (pic­tured) ruled on March 15 that fed­er­al death row inmate Ronell Wilson is inel­i­gi­ble for the death penal­ty because he has intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty. In 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Atkins v. Virginia that the death penal­ty con­sti­tut­ed cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment when applied to peo­ple diag­nosed with intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty, then known as men­tal retar­da­tion. Wilson was first sen­tenced to death in…

In two sep­a­rate op-eds, an Ohio Supreme Court Justice and a death row exoneree from Ohio expressed con­cerns about wrong­ful con­vic­tions that have led them to believe the death penal­ty should be abol­ished. In The Highland County Press, Justice Paul Pfeifer (pic­tured, r.) wrote about the ​“long and com­plex” case of Thomas Keenan, who was grant­ed a new tri­al because pros­e­cu­tors ille­gal­ly with­held evi­dence. Pfeifer points to the misconduct…

Darryl Hunt (pic­tured), an exoneree and anti-death penal­ty advo­cate, was found dead in Winston-Salem, North Carolina on March 13, 2016. Hunt was wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed of the 1984 rape and mur­der of Deborah Sykes, a news­pa­per copy edi­tor. Prosecutors sought the death penal­ty against him, but he received a life sen­tence because a sin­gle juror refused to vote for death. His con­vic­tion was over­turned in 1989 and pros­e­cu­tors offered Hunt a deal for time served, in…

The recent book, 13 Ways of Looking at the Death Penalty, by Mario Marazziti, explores the United States’ con­tin­u­ing use of the death penal­ty in a world com­mu­ni­ty that is increas­ing­ly reject­ing the prac­tice. The Philadelphia Inquirer calls the book ​“an inter­est­ing, com­pelling look at the cul­tur­al and reli­gious under­pin­nings of the death penal­ty and how we got here. More impor­tant, [Marazziti’s] inter­views with U.S. death-row inmates — living…

Creighton Horton spent 30 years as a pros­e­cu­tor with the Salt Lake District Attorney’s Office and Utah Attorney General’s Office before retir­ing in 2009. In a recent op-ed, he said his expe­ri­ence han­dling cap­i­tal cas­es led him to believe Utah should abol­ish the death…