Publications & Testimony

A new survey conducted by SoonerPoll has found that while three-quarters of likely Oklahoma voters say they support the death penalty in theory, a majority (53%) support abolishing capital punishment and replacing it with a sentence of life without parole, plus restitution to victims’ families. Among every political affiliation, more supported the plan to replace the death penalty than favored keeping it, with a majority of Democrats (58%) and independents (57%) supporting abolition and a…

Distribution restrictions put in place by major pharmaceutical companies in the United States against misuse of their medicines and export regulations instituted by the European Union have made it increasingly difficult for states to obtain supplies of drugs for use in executions. However, despite these restrictions, some states have obtained pharmaceutical products manufactured by these companies for use in lethal injections. The Influence reports that the Commonwealth of Virginia obtained…

Lawyers for Jeffery Wood (pictured), a Texas death row prisoner who is scheduled to be executed August 24 despite undisputed evidence that he has never killed anyone, have filed a new petition in state court challenging his death sentence on multiple grounds. They argue that Wood cannot be subject to the death penalty because he neither killed nor intended for anyone to be killed and was not even aware the robbery in which a codefendant killed a store clerk was going to occur. They also…

The Delaware Supreme Court on August 2 declared the state’s capital sentencing procedures unconstitutional, leaving Delaware without a valid death penalty statute. In the case of Benjamin Rauf v. State of Delaware, the court held that Delaware’s death sentencing procedures violate the constitutional principles recently set forth by the U.S. Supreme Court’s January 2016 decision in Hurst v. Florida. Hurst stated that a capital defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to trial by jury requires “a jury…

On August 1, The Movement for Black Lives issued a 40-point policy platform that includes a call for the abolition of capital punishment. The platform, which was written or endorsed by more than 60 activist groups including the Black Lives Matter Network, describes its purpose as “articulat[ing] our vision of a fundamentally different world.” The portion of the platform seeking “an end to capital punishment” calls the death penalty “morally repugnant,” and links it to the legacy of race-based…

Nearly three-quarters of Kentuckians (72.4%) would support a moratorium on executions while problems in the administration of Kentucky’s death penalty are addressed, according to a new poll released on August 1 by the University of Kentucky Survey Research Center. Nearly two-thirds (62.6%) of those who said they support the death penalty were nevertheless in favor of a moratorium. The poll also found that 57.8% of respondents preferred a lengthy prison term (options ranged from 20 – 50 years to…

An initiative on the California ballot this November billed by its supporters as a reform alternative to abolishing the state’s death penalty will cost the state tens of millions of dollars to implement, according to an analysis by the Alarcón Advocacy Center at Loyola Law School, and “will not speed up executions.” The report, California Votes 2016: An Analysis of the Competing Death Penalty Ballot Initiatives, predicts that Proposition 66 (The Death Penalty Reform and Savings Act of 2016)…

Twenty years ago, frustrated by what they perceived to be the slow pace of capital punishment, Colorado legislators adopted a law to “fix” their death penalty by speeding up appeals. Proponents and opponents of the state’s death penalty agree on one thing: the law hasn’t worked. As The Denver Post reports, the state law intended to streamline the death penalty appeals process by imposing a two-year deadline for decision and consolidating direct appeals and post-conviction appeals into a…

On July 19, the newly constituted Pennsylvania Supreme Court unanimously voted to uphold a trial court’s order granting a new trial to Philadelphia death row prisoner, Christopher Williams. The court determined that Williams’ trial and appellate counsel had been ineffective by failing to investigate and present expert forensic testimony on blood flow and gunshot wounds that would have demonstrated that the version of the murders presented by the prosecution’s lead witness was incompatible with…