Publications & Testimony

84 years after Pennsylvania exe­cut­ed a black 16-year-old for the 1931 mur­der of his white school matron, the descen­dants of the boy’s tri­al lawyers are try­ing to exonerate…

CORRECTION: On June 18, the U.S. Supreme Court announced its deci­sion in Brumfield v. Cain, a Louisiana death penal­ty case deal­ing with intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty. The Court held that the fed­er­al dis­trict court was enti­tled to con­duct an evi­den­tiary hear­ing to deter­mine whether Kevan Brumfield has intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty and is there­fore inel­i­gi­ble for exe­cu­tion. It reversed a rul­ing of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit that would…

The Spring 2015 update to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund’s pub­li­ca­tion, Death Row, USA, reports that 3,002 men and women were on death rows across the United States as of April 1, 2015. This reflects a con­tin­u­ing decline in the size of death row, down 13% since Spring 2005, when 3,452 peo­ple were on America’s death rows. Several states saw sig­nif­i­cant drops in their death row pop­u­la­tions over that peri­od while car­ry­ing out few or no executions:…

On June 12, a unan­i­mous pan­el of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit rebuffed what it described as ​“a con­cert­ed effort” by Pennsylvania pros­e­cu­tors to bar lawyers from the Philadelphia fed­er­al com­mu­ni­ty defend­er’s cap­i­tal habeas unit from rep­re­sent­ing death row inmates in Pennsylvania state-lev­el appeals. The for­mer Chief Justice of the Pennsylvania state courts had sharply critized the unit — which has over­turned more than 100 Pennsylvania death sen­tences — for…

On June 12, the State Bar of Texas dis­barred Burleson County District Attorney Charles Sebesta, the pros­e­cu­tor whose mis­con­duct led to the wrong­ful con­vic­tion of death row exoneree Anthony Graves (pic­tured, r.). The bar found that Sebesta vio­lat­ed no few­er than five of the Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct, includ­ing mak­ing a false state­ment to a court, using evi­dence known to be false, and fail­ing to dis­close excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence to the defense. In 2006, the…

As the antic­i­pat­ed late-June deci­sion by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Oklahoma lethal injec­tion case, Glossip v. Gross, approach­es, the Oklahoma state courts have ruled that a media law­suit seek­ing dis­cov­ery and depo­si­tions relat­ing to the state’s botched exe­cu­tion of Clayton Lockett may pro­ceed. On June 8, the Oklahoma Supreme Court unan­i­mous­ly denied a motion filed by Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin to block action in Branstetter v. Fallin, a law­suit filed…

In a press release on June 9, the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) announced its pol­i­cy affirm­ing ​“that phar­ma­cists, as health­care providers who are ded­i­cat­ed to achiev­ing opti­mal health out­comes and pre­serv­ing life, should not par­tic­i­pate in cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment.” ASHP rep­re­sents 40,000 mem­bers, includ­ing phar­ma­cists who serve as patient-care providers in acute and ambu­la­to­ry set­tings. The orga­ni­za­tion also includes stu­dent phar­ma­cists and pharmacy…

Testimony of Robert Brett Dunham, Executive Director, Death Penalty Information Center before the Pennsylvania House Judiciary Committee in con­nec­tion with Pennsylvania’s death penal­ty mora­to­ri­um (Harrisburg, June 11,…

On June 9, Richard Strong was exe­cut­ed in Missouri, despite the fact that four Justices of the Supreme Court would have grant­ed him a stay and despite evi­dence that he suf­fered from severe men­tal ill­ness. A broad chal­lenge to Missouri’s secre­tive lethal injec­tion process (Zink v. Lombardi) has yet to be resolved, and Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan vot­ed to stay Strong’s exe­cu­tion because of that chal­lenge. However, five votes are need­ed to…