Publications & Testimony

Legislators in Ohio are seek­ing to enact death penal­ty reforms as the state grap­ples with prob­lems in the appli­ca­tion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Sen. Bill Seitz, a Republican, and Sen. Sandra Williams, a Democrat, are work­ing on four bills to address some of the reforms rec­om­mend­ed by the Ohio Supreme Court Death Penalty Task Force last year. The bills would pre­vent the exe­cu­tion of defen­dants with seri­ous men­tal impair­ments, estab­lish a fund for indigent…

A pre­vi­ous­ly undis­closed let­ter writ­ten by jail­house infor­mant Johnny E. Webb, a cru­cial wit­ness in the tri­al of Cameron Willingham (pic­tured) in Texas, indi­cates that Webb’s sen­tence may have been reduced in exchange for his tes­ti­mo­ny that Willingham had con­fessed to inten­tion­al­ly start­ing a house fire that killed his three daugh­ters. The defense had nev­er been informed of the exis­tence of any deal between Webb and pros­e­cu­tors in the case. Willingham was…

On March 4, Akorn Pharmaceuticals, a man­u­fac­tur­er of two drugs (mida­zo­lam and pen­to­bar­bi­tal) that have been used in exe­cu­tions, released a state­ment announc­ing mea­sures to block the sale of its prod­ucts to pris­ons. Akorn joins at least two oth­er U.S.-based drug com­pa­nies and sev­er­al European com­pa­nies in express­ing oppo­si­tion to the use of their prod­ucts in lethal injec­tions. In 2014, Par Pharmaceuticals respond­ed to Indiana’s pro­posed use of one of their…

On March 9, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear Hurst v. Florida, a chal­lenge to the state’s unusu­al sen­tenc­ing pro­ce­dure. In a pri­or rul­ing, Ring v. Arizona (2002), the Court held that the ques­tion of whether a defen­dant is eli­gi­ble for the death penal­ty is enti­tled to a jury deterem­i­na­tion. Unlike almost every oth­er state where unan­i­mous juries are required for death eli­gi­bil­i­ty and a death sen­tence, Florida only…

UPDATE: An image of Cecil Clayton’s brain obtained via MRI can be viewed here. The image shows the front left part of his brain is phys­i­cal­ly missing.

On March 6, sev­er­al stake­hold­ers in California​’s death penal­ty sys­tem filed sup­port­ive briefs urg­ing the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to uphold a District Court rul­ing that the state’s death penal­ty is uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. The 9^th Circuit is con­sid­er­ing the state’s appeal in the case of Ernest Jones, whose death sen­tence was over­turned by Judge Cormac Carney (pic­tured). In an ami­cus brief on behalf of Jones, Bethany Webb, whose sis­ter was murdered…

UPDATE: The repeal bill unan­i­mous­ly passed out of the Judiciary Committee on Mar. 9. Earlier: At a Nebraska leg­isla­tive hear­ing on March 4, dozens of peo­ple tes­ti­fied in favor of abol­ish­ing the death penal­ty, includ­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tives from fam­i­lies of mur­der vic­tims, from law enforce­ment, the judi­cia­ry, and Nebraska Conservatives Concerned about the Death Penalty. Among the co-spon­sors of the bill to replace the death penal­ty with life with­out parole are…

In an unusu­al joint edi­to­r­i­al on March 5, four nation­al Catholic pub­li­ca­tions called for an end to the death penal­ty in the U.S. The edi­tors of America, National Catholic Register, National Catholic Reporter, and Our Sunday Visitor urged ​“the read­ers of our diverse pub­li­ca­tions and the whole U.S. Catholic com­mu­ni­ty and all peo­ple of faith to stand with us and say, ​‘Capital pun­ish­ment must end.’ ” Citing oppo­si­tion to the…