Publications & Testimony

Cynthia Portaro, whose son, Michael (pic­tured), was killed in 2011, stood before a Nevada court­room on February 23 and asked pros­e­cu­tors to stop seek­ing the death penal­ty for the man con­vict­ed of her son’s mur­der. Prosecutors agreed to the request and said they would ask the judge to sen­tence Brandon Hill to life with­out parole. Portaro said, ​“I per­son­al­ly didn’t want to see anoth­er per­son die. I got what I want­ed — an apol­o­gy from Brandon. I felt a sense of relief that there…

UPDATE: Gissendaner’s exe­cu­tion has been resched­uled to Monday, March 2, due to a win­ter storm fore­cast to hit Georgia. Previously: On February 25 the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles denied clemen­cy to Kelly Gissendaner, the only woman on the state’s death row. Gissendaner was con­vict­ed of orches­trat­ing the mur­der of her hus­band, but did not car­ry out the killing her­self. At Gissendaner’s clemen­cy hear­ing, 21 peo­ple tes­ti­fied in favor of…

Mike Farrell, actor and human rights leader, argued in an op-ed in the Cleveland Plain Dealer that the case of Anthony Apanovitch in Ohio demon­strates sev­er­al sig­nif­i­cant prob­lems with the death penal­ty. Apanovitch was recent­ly grant­ed a new tri­al, 30 years after he was con­vict­ed. Evidence in Apanovitch’s case was with­held from his defense, and a DNA test was not per­formed until decades after the tri­al. “[W]hen the state seeks the penal­ty of death –…

In her first press con­fer­ence since tak­ing office on February 18, Oregon Governor Kate Brown said she will con­tin­ue the mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions that for­mer Governor John Kitzhaber imposed in 2011. ​“There needs to be a broad­er dis­cus­sion about fix­ing the sys­tem,” Brown said. ​“Until that dis­cus­sion, I will be uphold­ing the mora­to­ri­um imposed by Gov. Kitzhaber.” When the for­mer gov­er­nor announced the mora­to­ri­um, he also called for a statewide dis­cus­sion about…

On February 18, the Montana House Judiciary Committee vot­ed (11 – 10) to advance HB 370, a bill to replace the death penal­ty with a max­i­mum sen­tence of life with­out parole. The same com­mit­tee had reject­ed sim­i­lar bills sev­er­al times in recent years. The bill will now move to the full House. Republican bill spon­sor Rep. David Moore (pic­tured) said he thought the bill had a decent chance of pass­ing in the House. Rep. Clayton Fiscus, one of two Republican mem­bers of the Judiciary…

Jeanne Bishop has writ­ten a new book about her life and spir­i­tu­al jour­ney after her sis­ter was mur­dered in Illinois in 1990. Change of Heart: Justice, Mercy, and Making Peace with My Sister’s Killer tells Bishop’s per­son­al sto­ry of grief, loss, and of her even­tu­al efforts to con­front and rec­on­cile with her sis­ter’s killer. She also address­es larg­er issues of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, life sen­tences for juve­nile offend­ers, and restora­tive jus­tice. Former Illinois Governor…

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder rec­om­mend­ed that all exe­cu­tions be put on hold while the Supreme Court is con­sid­er­ing Glossip v. Gross, a case involv­ing Oklahoma​’s lethal injec­tion pro­ce­dure. Speaking for him­self, rather than the admin­is­tra­tion, at a press lun­cheon on February 17, Holder said, ​“I think a mora­to­ri­um until the Supreme Court makes that deci­sion would be appro­pri­ate.” Holder has pre­vi­ous­ly crit­i­cized state…

Attorneys for Rodney Reed, a death row inmate in Texas, have filed a peti­tion in a coun­ty court with new evi­dence sup­port­ing an alter­nate the­o­ry of the crime that led to Reed’s con­vic­tion. Reed is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed on March 5 for the mur­der of Stacy…

A recent arti­cle by Prof. Eric Berger of the University of Nebraska College of Law argued that defen­dants fac­ing exe­cu­tion have a fun­da­men­tal right to know impor­tant infor­ma­tion about the lethal injec­tion drugs they will be giv­en. Berger wrote, ​“Judicial recog­ni­tion of this due process right would both pro­tect Eighth Amendment val­ues and also encour­age states to make their exe­cu­tion pro­ce­dures more trans­par­ent and less dan­ger­ous.” After dis­cussing the history…

On February 13, 2015 Governor Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania announced a mora­to­ri­um on all exe­cu­tions in the state. He said no exe­cu­tions will take place at least until he has ​“received and reviewed the forth­com­ing report of the Pennsylvania Task Force and Advisory Commission on Capital Punishment, estab­lished under Senate Resolution 6 of 2011, and there is an oppor­tu­ni­ty to address all con­cerns sat­is­fac­to­ri­ly.” The legislature…