Publications & Testimony

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…

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…

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…

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.

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…

UPDATE: Wesbrook was exe­cut­ed on Mar. 9. EARLIER: Coy Wesbrook is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed in Texas on March 9. If the exe­cu­tion pro­ceeds, it will be the eighth in the U.S. this year, half of which have been in Texas. Wesbrook killed five peo­ple after a con­fronta­tion with his ex-wife. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that defen­dants with intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty (for­mer­ly referred to as​“men­tal retar­da­tion”) are exempt…

The Lexington Herald-Leader, Kentucky’s sec­ond-largest news­pa­per, announced it was end­ing its long-held sup­port for the death penal­ty, and now believes the state leg­is­la­ture should abol­ish cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Describing its pre­vi­ous posi­tion as​“keep it but fix it,” the edi­tors stat­ed,​“we must now con­cede that the death penal­ty is not going to be fixed and, in fact, prob­a­bly can­not be fixed at any defen­si­ble cost to tax­pay­ers.” Citing the 2011 American…

The U.S. Supreme Court issued a per curi­am deci­sion on March 7 grant­i­ng a new tri­al to Louisiana death row inmate Michael Wearry as a result of mul­ti­ple acts of mis­con­duct by pros­e­cu­tors in his case. No phys­i­cal evi­dence linked Wearry to the mur­der. His con­vic­tion was based large­ly on the tes­ti­mo­ny of an infor­mant, Sam Scott, who came for­ward two years after the crime with an account that did not match the details of the crime. Scott altered his story…

UPDATE: Gov. Rick Scott signed the bill into law on March 7. Previously: The Florida leg­is­la­ture passed a bill on March 3 to restruc­ture its death penal­ty statute in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s rul­ing in Hurst v. Florida, which declared the state’s death penal­ty pro­ce­dures uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. The bill mod­i­fies Florida’s prac­tice of per­mit­ting judges to impose death sen­tences with­out the unan­i­mous agree­ment of jurors by…

Jefferson County, Alabama Circuit Judge Tracie Todd (pic­tured) ruled on March 3 that Alabama’s cap­i­tal sen­tenc­ing pro­ce­dure vio­lates the U.S. Constitution. Judge Todd barred the death penal­ty for four cap­i­tal mur­der defen­dants, say­ing that Alabama’s use of judi­cial over­ride violates the…