Publications & Testimony

A recent poll conducted by the University of South Carolina reveals deep racial divisions in the state over the death penalty and over the appropriateness of applying it in the case of Dylann Roof, the white defendant who faces state and federal capital charges in the race-based killings of nine black members of Emanuel AME Church in Charleston. According to the poll, 64.9% of African Americans in South Carolina oppose the death penalty, while 69.4% of white South Carolinians say they support…

Saying that he has a permanent condition that makes him too mentally ill to execute, the office of California Attorney General Kamala Harris (pictured) recently asked the California Supreme Court to remove Ronnie McPeters from California’s death row and resentence him to life without parole. The action is rare because McPeters is not facing an imminent execution date, but Chief Deputy Attorney General Nathan Barankin said his office now considers some death row prisoners so “grievously…

A second Florida trial court has ruled that the state’s new death penalty statute is unconstitutional. On June 9, Hillsborough County Judge Samantha Ward barred prosecutors from seeking death against Michael Edward Keetley, saying that the state’s death penalty statute violated the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Judge Ward said that the Florida legislature’s changes to the sentencing law after the U.S. Supreme Court had declared the old statute unconstitutional in Hurst v. Florida…

On June 9, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Williams v. Pennsylvania that Terry Williams’ (pictured) due process rights were violated when Pennsylvania’s Chief Justice refused to recuse himself from the case. Ronald Castille served as Philadelphia District Attorney before being elected to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. As District Attorney, he personally approved the decision to pursue the death penalty against the 18-year-old Williams, and then, while running for state Supreme Court, touted his…

Pascal Calogero (pictured), former associate and chief justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court, has called upon the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case of David Brown, a Louisiana death row prisoner who is challenging his sentence on the grounds that prosecutors withheld exculpatory evidence. Brown says prosecutors violated the Supreme Court’s ruling in Brady v. Maryland, which requires disclosure of evidence that would be favorable to a defendant, whether relating to his guilt or in reaching…

A judge dismissed murder charges against former Texas death row prisoner Kerry Max Cook on June 6, after prosecutors conceded that his due process rights had been violated by the presentation of false testimony from an alternative suspect. The decision moves Cook one step closer to exoneration, nearly 40 years after he was originally convicted and sentenced to death for the 1977 murder of Linda Jo Edwards. Smith County prosecutors tried Cook three times, twice winning convictions and death…

On June 6, the U.S. Supreme Court granted writs of certiorari in two Texas death penalty cases, and will review the constitutionality of those death sentences during its next term. The two cases are Buck v. Stephens, in which Duane Buck was sentenced to death after a psychologist testified at his penalty trial that the fact that Buck is African-American increases the likelihood that he presents a future danger to society; and Moore v. Texas, a challenge to Texas’ unscientific test for…

Louisiana will not conduct any executions in 2016 or 2017 as a result of a new court order issued with the consent of the parties in federal proceedings challenging the constitutionality of Louisiana’s lethal injection process. At the request of the Louisiana Attorney General, a federal judge has delayed proceedings on the state’s lethal injection protocol for an additional 18 months, making January 2018 the earliest date the state could resume executions. Attorney General Jeff Landry asked for…

The U.S. Supreme Court has overturned a death sentence imposed on Shawn Patrick Lynch by an Arizona jury that had not been told he would have been ineligible for parole if jurors sentenced to him to life imprisonment. In a 6 – 2 decision on May 31, the Court agreed to review Lynch’s case, vacated the judgment of the Arizona Supreme Court, and summarily reversed Lynch’s death sentence. Under Arizona law, the only sentences the jury could impose in Lynch’s case were life without possibility of…

Pfizer’s recent announcement that it was tightening controls against what it calls the misuse of its medicines in executions highlights an on-going struggle between states desperate for execution drugs and a medical community that believes its involvement in the lethal injection process violates its medical and corporate missions and the ethical standards of the pharmaceutical and health professions. As Pfizer and nearly two dozen other pharmaceutical companies have ended open market access to…