Publications & Testimony

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…

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…

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…

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,”…

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…

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…

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…

Four retired death-row prison offi­cials — two war­dens, a chap­lain, and an exe­cu­tion super­vi­sor — recent­ly described the effect that car­ry­ing out executions has…

In a recent op-ed in The Hill, three lead­ing phar­ma­cists wrote in sup­port of the res­o­lu­tion by the American Pharmacists Association (APhA), dis­cour­ag­ing phar­ma­cist par­tic­i­pa­tion in exe­cu­tions. Leonard Edloe, for­mer CEO of Edloe’s Professional Pharmacies, William Fassett (pic­tured), pro­fes­sor emer­i­tus of phar­ma­col­o­gy at Washington State University, and Philip Hantsen,…