Publications & Testimony

Calling the death penal­ty ​“an instru­ment of imper­fect jus­tice,” Governor Jack Markell (pic­tured) of Delaware announced on May 7 that he will sign the death penal­ty repeal bill under con­sid­er­a­tion in the state leg­is­la­ture if the bill reach­es his desk. The Delaware Senate passed repeal in April by a vote of 11 – 9. The House Judiciary Committee is expect­ed to hold a hear­ing soon. Markell had not pre­vi­ous­ly tak­en a stance on abol­ish­ing the death…

The week of the 25^th anniver­sary of Florida​’s grue­some botched elec­tric chair exe­cu­tion of Jesse Tafero (pic­tured), the Tennessee Supreme Court began hear­ing a chal­lenge to the admin­is­tra­tion of a state law that would res­ur­rect the use of that State’s elec­tric chair if lethal injec­tion drugs are unavail­able. On May 6, 2015, the Tennessee jus­tices heard argu­ment on death-row inmates’ right to know which method of execution…

In an inter­view with Salon, Anthony Ray Hinton (pic­tured, l.), the 152^nd death row exoneree, spoke about his wrong­ful con­vic­tion and spend­ing 30 years on Alabama​’s death row for a crime he did not com­mit. ​“They had every inten­tion of exe­cut­ing an inno­cent man,” Hinton said. ​“If you’re poor and black you don’t stand a chance.” Hinton spoke about the inad­e­quate rep­re­sen­ta­tion he received at his tri­al: ​“My bal­lis­tics expert was blind in one eye. He was…

The num­ber of peo­ple sen­tenced to death in Virginia has plum­met­ed from 40 in the years 1998 – 2005 to only 6 from 2006 through April 2015. A recent study sug­gests that improve­ments in cap­i­tal rep­re­sen­ta­tion in the state may have played a sig­nif­i­cant role in that dra­mat­ic change. In 2004, Virginia estab­lished four region­al cap­i­tal defend­er offices, which are com­plete­ly devot­ed to han­dling death penal­ty cas­es. The year before the defend­er offices opened, Virginia juries imposed 6 death sentences,…

On April 21, 2015, Oktibbeha County (Mississippi) District Attorney Forrest Allgood announced that he would drop charges against death row inmate Willie…

Dr. Jay Chapman, the Oklahoma med­ical exam­in­er who cre­at­ed the three-drug lethal injec­tion pro­to­col that was used from 1982 to 2010, recent­ly told The Guardian that he has doubts about the death penalty.“I am ambiva­lent about the death penal­ty – there have been so many inci­dents of pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct, or DNA test­ing that has proved a prisoner’s inno­cence. It’s prob­lem­at­ic,” Chapman said. He said he believed lethal injec­tion would be a more humane method of exe­cu­tion, ​“At that…

In an arti­cle for the University of Richmond Law Review, Stephen Bright (pic­tured), President and Senior Counsel at the Southern Center for Human Rights, describes the arbi­trary fac­tors that con­tin­ue to influ­ence the death penal­ty. Bright first describes the his­tor­i­cal con­text that led the Supreme Court to strike down the death penal­ty in 1976. He draws com­par­isons between lynch­ings, which he says were ​“used to main­tain racial con­trol after the Civil War,” and capital…

On April 29, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argu­ment in Glossip v. Gross, a case chal­leng­ing the use of mida­zo­lam in lethal injec­tions. Midazolam was used as the first drug in three botched exe­cu­tions in 2014, includ­ing the exe­cu­tion of Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma exact­ly one year ago. Prisoners on Oklahoma’s death row argued that mida­zo­lam should not be used in exe­cu­tions because it could not reli­ably anes­the­size the pris­on­er to pre­vent him or…

In a case spot­light­ing issues of men­tal ill­ness and the death penal­ty, the Florida Supreme Court on April 23 unan­i­mous­ly over­turned the death sen­tence imposed on a severe­ly men­tal­ly ill death-row inmate, Humberto Delgado (pic­tured). Delgado, who was con­vict­ed of killing a Tampa police offi­cer, will be resen­tenced to life with­out parole. The court said, ​“We do not down­play the fact that Corporal Roberts lost his life as a result of Delgado’s actions. However ……

Nebraska’s uni­cam­er­al leg­is­la­ture recent­ly vot­ed 30 – 13 in favor of repeal­ing the State’s death penal­ty, advanc­ing the bill to a sec­ond round of leg­isla­tive review. (In Nebraska, a bill must pass three times before it is sent to the Governor.) A major­i­ty (17 out of 30) of Republican leg­is­la­tors vot­ed in favor of the bill, which was also sup­port­ed by 12 Democrats and one Independent leg­is­la­tor. Sen. Colby Coash (R‑Lincoln), said, ​“If any oth­er sys­tem in our gov­ern­ment was as inef­fec­tive and…