Publications & Testimony

The conditions in which prisoners on Texas’ death row are confined are “harsh and inhumane,” violate international human rights norms, and amount to “a severe and relentless act of torture,” according to a new study by the University of Texas School of Law Human Rights Clinic. The study, “Designed to Break You,” collected accounts from former death-row prisoners who had been exonerated or who had received lesser sentences after their death sentences had been overturned. Their stories revealed…

After spending more than a year studying Oklahoma’s capital punishment practices, the Oklahoma Death Penalty Review Commission has unanimously recommended that the state extend its current moratorium on executions “until significant reforms are accomplished.” The bipartisan commission issued its report on April 25, 2017, reaching what it characterized as “disturbing” findings that “led Commission members to question whether the death penalty can be administered in a way that ensures no innocent…

Arkansas carried out the nation’s first double execution in nearly 17 years on April 24, 2017. The state executed Jack Jones (pictured, l.) and Marcel Williams (pictured, r.) about three hours apart, with Williams’ execution delayed following allegations that Jones’ execution may have been botched. Williams’ attorneys filed an emergency request for a stay in federal district court, saying that “Mr. Jones’s execution appeared to be torturous and inhumane.” The state denied the allegations…

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued a final order refusing to release illegally imported medicines that the states of Texas and Arizona had intended to use in executions. On April 20, 2017, the FDA notified prison officials that it would not release the two states’ shipments of 1,000 vials each of sodium thiopental that the FDA had seized at U.S. airports in October 2015 when the states had attempted to import the drug from a supplier in India. Both shipments were halted at…

On April 20, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe commuted the death sentence of Ivan Teleguz (pictured), whom the Commonwealth had scheduled to be executed on April 25. Teleguz will now serve a sentence of life without parole. It was the first death-penalty clemency ever issued by Gov. McAuliffe. The official statement released to the media in conjunction with the commutation outlined several of the factors that influenced the Governor’s decision, including the prosecution’s use of false evidence…

In 1949, Norma Padgett, a white 17-year-old, falsely accused four young black men in Groveland, Florida of kidnapping and raping her. Nearly 70 years later, the state of Florida is apologizing to the families of the “Groveland Four,” two of whom were murdered and two of whom were wrongly sentenced to death. After the false accusations, enraged white residents of Lake County went on a violent rampage, shooting at and burning the homes of black residents. The Governor sought help from the…

Two Arkansas death-row prisoners who are scheduled be executed on April 20 have asked the Arkansas courts to stay their executions to permit DNA testing in their cases. Stacey Johnson (pictured, l.) and Ledell Lee (pictured, r.) both say they did not commit the crimes for which they were sentenced to death, and both say that DNA testing methods not available at the time of their trials could prove their innocence. Stacey Johnson was convicted of the 1993 rape and murder of Carol Jean Heath.

Caddo Parish, Louisiana prosecutors formally dropped charges against Rodricus Crawford (pictured) on April 17, exonerating him in a controversial death penalty case that had attracted national attention amid evidence of race discrimination, prosecutorial excess, and actual innocence. He is the 158^th person exonerated from death row in the United States since 1973. Crawford was convicted in 2012 and sentenced to death on charges he had murdered his one-year-old son. Crawford’s appellate…

In legal challenges filed separately by Arkansas death-row prisoners and a company involved in the distribution of pharmaceuticals, the Arkansas state and federal courts issued preliminary injunctions putting on hold the state’s plan to carry out an unprecedented eight executions in the span of eleven days. After a four-day evidentiary hearing that ended late in the evening on Thursday, April 13, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas issued a preliminary…

Amid mounting concerns that Virginia may execute an innocent man on April 25, a diverse group of religious, political, and business leaders are calling on Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe to grant clemency to Ivan Teleguz (pictured). Their pleas for clemency stress that Teleguz was convicted based upon highly unreliable testimony and sentenced to death based upon false testimony that he had been involved in a fabricated Pennsylvania murder that had, in fact, never occurred. Teleguz was…