Publications & Testimony

A recent arti­cle in The Economist high­lights con­tin­u­ing long-term inter­na­tion­al trends away from the death penal­ty. Since December, three coun­tries — Fiji, Madagascar, and Suriname — have abol­ished the death penal­ty, increas­ing the num­ber of abo­li­tion­ist coun­tries to above 100. In December, 117 coun­tries vot­ed to sup­port a United Nations res­o­lu­tion for an inter­na­tion­al mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions. The arti­cle notes a few out­lier coun­tries, includ­ing the United…

A major­i­ty of Texas death row pris­on­ers who vol­un­tar­i­ly respond­ed to a recent sur­vey by the Texas Observer report­ed hav­ing expe­ri­enced abuse or oth­er trau­ma as chil­dren. The sur­vey results are con­sis­tent with the find­ings of aca­d­e­m­ic stud­ies that have repeat­ed­ly doc­u­ment­ed high rates of child­hood abuse among those sen­tenced to death. The Texas Observer sur­vey found that 22 of the 41 death…

David Keaton, the first man exon­er­at­ed from death row in the mod­ern era of the death penal­ty (1973-present), died on July 3 at the age of 63. Keaton was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in Florida in 1971 for the mur­der of an off-duty police offi­cer. His con­vic­tion was based on a coerced con­fes­sion and erro­neous eye­wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny. In 1973, the actu­al per­pe­tra­tor was dis­cov­ered because of new evi­dence, and Keaton was…

Highlighting the recent abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty in Nebraska and con­cerns about wrong­ful con­vic­tions, National Urban League President Marc H. Morial (pic­tured) called for an end to exe­cu­tions. In an op-ed for The Philadelphia Tribune, Morial cit­ed declin­ing pub­lic sup­port for the death penal­ty:​“56 per­cent of Americans sup­port the death penal­ty, this from a high of almost 80 per­cent in the mid-90s,” he said. He also…

A fed­er­al judge in Louisiana has delayed five exe­cu­tions until at least July 2016 as state offi­cials strug­gle to deter­mine how to con­duct exe­cu­tions using lethal injec­tion. Christopher Sepulvado, a death row inmate whose exe­cu­tion has been resched­uled sev­er­al times over the last two years, is chal­leng­ing the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of Louisiana’s exe­cu­tion method. The Department of Corrections requested…

Through the lens of a 1927 mur­der and the ensu­ing tri­als of three sus­pects, An Evil Day in Georgia exam­ines the death penal­ty sys­tem in Prohibition-era Georgia. James Hugh Moss, a black man, and Clifford Thompson, a white man, both from Tennessee, were accused of the mur­der of store own­er Coleman Osborn in rur­al north Georgia. Thought to be involved in the ille­gal inter­state trade of alco­hol, they were tried, con­vict­ed, and sen­tenced to death on…

In a dis­sent­ing opin­ion in Glossip v. Gross, Justice Stephen Breyer (pic­tured), joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, pro­vid­ed a sweep­ing analy­sis of why he believes the death penal­ty in the United States may be uncon­sti­tu­tion­al and called for a​“full brief­ing” on​“whether the death penal­ty vio­lates the Constitution.” Justice Breyer wrote that​“Nearly 40 years ago, this Court upheld the death penalty under…

Death row in Texas has shrunk from 460 men and women at its peak in 1999 to 260 today. The main rea­son for that drop, accord­ing to an arti­cle in The Texas Tribune, is the dra­mat­ic decline in death sen­tences imposed in the state. In 1999 alone, Texas sen­tenced 48 peo­ple to death. But in the first 6 months of 2015, no death sen­tences have been imposed in Texas. This devel­op­ment is unprece­dent­ed, accord­ing to the Texas Defender Service…

Michelle Byrom (pic­tured, seat­ed) was released from prison in Mississippi on June 26 after spend­ing 16 years behind bars, 14 of them on death row, for the mur­der of her hus­band. Byrom main­tains her inno­cence for the crime, but agreed to an Alford plea — which means that she plead­ed no con­test to the charges against her — in exchange for her release. In 2014, the Mississippi Supreme Court reversed Byrom’s con­vic­tion and death sen­tence and ordered a new trial,…

Glenn Ford, who was exon­er­at­ed last year after spend­ing almost 30 years on Louisiana’s death row, died of lung can­cer on June 29 at the age of 65. At the time of his release, Ford was the nation’s longest-serv­ing death row exoneree. Just hours after his death, Ford’s case was cit­ed in the dis­sent­ing opin­ion of Justice Breyer in Glossip v. Gross, as pro­vid­ing​“strik­ing” evi­dence​“that the death…