Publications & Testimony

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…

Most of the prisoners on Oregon’s death row suffer from significant mental impairments, according a study released on December 20, 2016 by the Fair Punishment Project at Harvard University. The Project’s analysis of case records, media reports, and opinions of Oregon legal experts found that two-thirds of the 35 people on the state’s death row “possess signs of serious mental illness or intellectual impairment, endured devastatingly severe childhood trauma, or were not old enough to legally…

More than 200 Florida death row prisoners may have their death sentences overturned, while more than 150 others who may have been unconstitutionally sentenced to death will not, as a result of two lengthy opinions issued by the Florida Supreme Court on December 22. The rulings in the cases of Asay v. State and Mosley v. State would entitle death row prisoners whose unconstitutional death sentences became “final” in or after 2002 to have their death sentences vacated in light of the decisions of…

Death sentences, executions, and public support for the death penalty continued their historic declines in 2016, according to DPIC’s annual report, “The Death Penalty in 2016: Year End Report,” released on December 21. The 30 death sentences imposed this year are the fewest in the modern era of capital punishment in the U.S. — since the Supreme Court declared all existing death penalty statutes unconstitutional in 1972 — and declined 39% from 2015’s already 40-year low. Just 20 people were executed…

A federal jury awarded $22 million in damages to Nathson Fields (pictured), who was wrongfully convicted of a gang-related murder and sentenced to death in 1986. Fields was exonerated in 2009. The jury found that two Chicago police detectives violated Fields’ civil rights by hiding critical evidence that suggested he did not commit the crime of which he was convicted. For many years, the Chicago police department maintained a practice of keeping secret “street files” on potential suspects. That…