Publications & Testimony

Saying that “race plays a decisive role in who lives and who dies” in capital cases in the United States, the National Black Caucus of State Legislators (NBCSL) voted at its 40^th annual conference on December 14, 2016, to adopt its first ever resolution calling for the abolition of the death penalty. The resolution states that “racial bias in the criminal justice system, including the death penalty and its application, is an undisputed fact,” and notes that “from slavery to Jim Crow to the…

Despite a sharp drop in executions, the United States ranked sixth among the world’s executioners in 2016 behind only China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Pakistan, according to a report by the British-based international human rights group, Reprieve. Maya Foa, a director of Reprieve, said “[i]t is alarming that countries with close links to the UK and [European Union] continue to occupy the ranks of the world’s most prolific executioners in 2016.” Questions of innocence, execution of juvenile…

In a new setback to efforts to restart executions in California, the state’s Office of Administrative Law (OAL) has rejected the new lethal injection protocol proposed by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. On December 28, 2016, the OAL, which is responsible for reviewing regulatory changes proposed in California, issued a 25-page decision of disapproval, citing inconsistencies, inadequate justification for certain parts of the proposal, and a failure to adequately…

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice filed suit on January 3, 2017 against the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) over the FDA’s continued detention of drugs Texas had attempted to import for executions. In October 2015, Texas and Arizona attempted to import sodium thiopental, an anesthetic commonly used in executions prior to 2010, from Harris Pharma, a supplier in India. The FDA halted both shipments, saying that their import violated federal law. The FDA does not comment on…

Citing “serious concerns about the use of capital punishment in the state of Washington,” Governor Jay Inslee (pictured) granted a reprieve to Clark Richard Elmore, whom the state’s Department of Corrections had scheduled for execution on January 19, 2017, and urged the state legislature to abolish capital punishment in the state. The December 29, 2016 warrant of reprieve was the first reprieve order issued under a moratorium on executions that the governor announced in 2014. The warrant…

When Missouri executed Jeff Ferguson in 2014 for the rape and murder of Kelli Hall, her father said the Hall family “believed the myth that Ferguson’s execution would close our emotional wounds.” At that time, Jim Hall told reporters “It’s over, thank God.” But, he now says, it wasn’t. In an op-ed in the Columbia Daily Tribune, Mr. Hall writes that his family has “come to deeply regret [Ferguson’s] execution” and appeals to Governor Jay Nixon to commute the death sentences of the 25 men…

On December 22, 2016, Pennsylvania prosecutors dropped first-degree murder charges against two former Pennsylvania death row prisoners who have asserted their innocence for decades. In courtrooms 100 miles apart, Tyrone Moore and James Dennis entered no-contest pleas to charges of third-degree murder, avoiding retrials on the charges that had initially sent the men to death row and paving the way for their release. A Luzerne County judge sentenced Moore to 20 years and released him from prison…

Orange County, California imposed nine death sentences between 2010 and 2015, more than 99.8% of American counties, and ranking it among the 6 most prolific death-sentencing counties in the country during that period. Over the last four years, patterns of misconduct have been revealed in the Orange County District Attorney’s Office, sheriff’s office, and crime lab. In 2015, Judge Thomas Goethals disqualified District Attorney Tony Rackauckas (pictured) and the entire prosecutor’s office from…

The United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly on December 20 to adopt a resolution co-sponsored by 89 countries urging a worldwide moratorium on the death penalty. 117 nations voted in support of the world body’s sixth resolution on the subject, equaling the record number of countries who supported a UN moratorium resolution in 2014. 40 member nations, including the United States, voted against the measure, while 31 abstained. The resolution also called upon all countries to respect…