Publications & Testimony

During his tenure as Attorney General of Virginia from 1998 to 2001, that state exe­cut­ed 36 peo­ple. Now Mark Earley oppos­es the death penal­ty. The for­mer Attorney General recent­ly dis­cussed his change of opin­ion in an arti­cle for the University of Richmond Law Review. He wrote, ​“If you believe that the gov­ern­ment always ​‘gets it right,’ nev­er makes seri­ous mis­takes, and is nev­er taint­ed with cor­rup­tion, then you can be com­fort­able supporting…

Two recent reports from Ohio high­light­ed the decline in the use of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in that state. On March 30, the Ohio Attorney General’s Office released its annu­al report on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. The Attorney General’s report not­ed three new death sen­tences, one com­mu­ta­tion, and one exe­cu­tion in Ohio in 2014, down from the state’s peak of 17 death sen­tences in both 1995 and 1996. It also report­ed that Ohio juries have imposed four or few­er death sen­tences in each of the…

Attorneys for Texas death row inmate Max Soffar, who is dying of liv­er can­cer, con­tin­ue to seek a rever­sal of his case, even though judi­cial action — if it comes — may be too late. Soffar main­tains his inno­cence in the 1980 mur­ders of three peo­ple dur­ing a bowl­ing alley rob­bery. The sole evi­dence against Soffar is a con­fes­sion he signed after three days of unrecord­ed inter­ro­ga­tion that is incon­sis­tent with the facts of the case and, he main­tains, is false.

Of the 12 death sen­tences hand­ed down in Louisiana in the last 5 years, 8 have come from Caddo Parish. Caddo is also among the 2% of U.S. coun­ties respon­si­ble for 56% of peo­ple on death row. With a pop­u­la­tion of just 257,000, Caddo Parish has sent 16 peo­ple to death row, the sec­ond high­est of any parish in Louisiana. Two pros­e­cu­tors, one of whom is under inves­ti­ga­tion for pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct, are respon­si­ble for 6 of the recent death sen­tences. Hugo Holland, who handled…

California’s death row — the largest in the coun­try — is expand­ing beyond the capac­i­ty of San Quentin State Prison to hold it. In response, Governor Jerry Brown has pro­posed a $3.2 mil­lion expen­di­ture to make about 100 new cells avail­able to incar­cer­ate death row inmates. California has not exe­cut­ed any death-row pris­on­er since 2006. Court rul­ings have barred the state from using its lethal injec­tion pro­to­col and, last July, in the case of…

Anthony Ray Hinton (pic­tured, l.) has been exon­er­at­ed after spend­ing near­ly 30 years on Alabama​’s death row. He will be released on April 3. Hinton was con­vict­ed of the 1985 mur­ders of two fast-food restau­rant man­agers based upon the tes­ti­mo­ny of a state foren­sic exam­in­er that the bul­lets in the two mur­ders came from a gun found in Hinton’s house. The pros­e­cu­tor, who had a doc­u­ment­ed his­to­ry of racial bias, said he could tell Hinton was guilty and ​“evil” just…

Former prison war­den, Frank Thompson, has urged repeal of Delaware’s death penal­ty. In an op-ed for The News Journal of Delaware, the for­mer war­den, who has per­son­al­ly over­seen two exe­cu­tions, describes ​“the immea­sur­able bur­den that th[e exe­cu­tion] process places on cor­rec­tion­al offi­cers” and the trau­ma expe­ri­enced by cor­rec­tion­al offi­cers who must car­ry out exe­cu­tions. Thompson says, ​“Many of us who have tak­en part in this process live with nightmares,…

Executions around the world declined by 22% last year, accord­ing to Amnesty International​’s 2014 annu­al report on death sen­tences and exe­cu­tions. The report — released on April 1 — indi­cates that an esti­mat­ed 607 peo­ple were exe­cut­ed world­wide in 2014, com­pared to 778 in 2013. The glob­al totals do not include exe­cu­tions in China, where data on the death penal­ty is con­sid­ered a state secret. On a region­al lev­el, Amnesty report­ed notable declines in Sub-Saharan Africa, where…

On March 30, the American Pharmacists Association (APhA) adopt­ed a res­o­lu­tion dis­cour­ag­ing phar­ma­cist par­tic­i­pa­tion in exe­cu­tions. The House of Delegates of the 62,000 mem­ber orga­ni­za­tion passed the pol­i­cy, which states, ​“The American Pharmacists Association dis­cour­ages phar­ma­cist par­tic­i­pa­tion in exe­cu­tions on the basis that such activ­i­ties are fun­da­men­tal­ly con­trary to the role of phar­ma­cists as providers of health care.” William Fassett, pro­fes­sor emer­i­tus of…

On Monday, March 30, the U.S. Supreme Court grant­ed review of three Kansas death penal­ty cas­es and heard oral argu­ment in a Louisiana case that pre­sent­ed ques­tions on the role of the fed­er­al courts in deter­min­ing whether a state pris­on­er who faces the death penal­ty has intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty. In the cas­es of Kansas v. Reginald Carr, Kansas v. Jonathan Carr, and Kansas v. Sidney…