Publications & Testimony

UPDATE: Winfield’s exe­cu­tion was stayed on June 12 because of state inter­fer­ence with the clemen­cy process. EARLIER: John Winfield is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed in Missouri on June 18 despite an affi­davit sub­mit­ted by one of the jurors at his tri­al stat­ing she was pres­sured to switch her sen­tenc­ing vote from life in prison to death. Kimberly Turner, who served on Winfield’s jury in 1998, recent­ly described the jury’s initial…

Following the botched exe­cu­tion of Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma in April, President Obama ordered the Justice Department to review death penal­ty pro­ce­dures in the states. Though a time­line for the study has not been released, the depart­ment has already reached out to at least one orga­ni­za­tion, the Constitution Project, which pro­posed sev­er­al reforms in its recent report on the death penal­ty, includ­ing the estab­lish­ing of an office at the…

When Connecticut abol­ished the death penal­ty in 2012, it did so prospec­tive­ly, leav­ing its death row pop­u­la­tion in place. Now, Connecticut new­pa­per The Day is call­ing on the state to ​“have the courage and con­sis­ten­cy to out­law gov­ern­ment sanc­tioned killing in all instances.” The edi­to­r­i­al first high­lights the paper’s long­stand­ing oppo­si­tion to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, say­ing ​“It remains our posi­tion that a state-spon­sored exe­cu­tion disproportionately…

A new poll by ABC News and the Washington Post found a major­i­ty (52%) of Americans pre­fer life with­out parole as pun­ish­ment for con­vict­ed mur­der­ers, with just 42% pre­fer­ring the death penal­ty. This is the first time that this poll has found a major­i­ty sup­port for life with­out parole over the death penal­ty. Without an alter­na­tive sen­tence offered, sup­port for the death penal­ty was 61%, equal­ing the low­est lev­el of sup­port in polls going back to the ear­ly 1980s, and show­ing a…

The Ohio Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal from Romell Broom (pic­tured), whose exe­cu­tion was halt­ed in 2009 after cor­rec­tion­al offi­cers spent two hours try­ing to insert an IV for a lethal injec­tion. Broom was pricked 18 times dur­ing the attempt­ed exe­cu­tion. The court will decide whether fur­ther attempts to exe­cute Broom would vio­late dou­ble-jeop­ardy rules or the Eighth Amendment ban on cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment. ​“Romell Broom has a con­sti­tu­tion­al right not to be…

Executions have been on hold in Kentucky since 2010, when Franklin Circuit Judge Philip Shepherd began a review of the state’s lethal injec­tion pro­to­col. The state revised its pro­to­col in 2012 to call for a one-drug method, with a two-drug method as a back­up if spe­cif­ic drugs were not avail­able. Now, that new pro­to­col is also being scru­ti­nized because it calls for the same drugs that caused the botched exe­cu­tion of Dennis McGuire in Ohio. Corrections…

Sabrina Butler (pic­tured), the only woman among the 144 peo­ple exon­er­at­ed from death row since 1973, recent­ly told her sto­ry in TIME…

As states con­tin­ue to seek alter­na­tive drugs and drug sources for lethal injec­tions, three sig­nif­i­cant devel­op­ments occurred last week. Indiana announced recent­ly that they would use Brevital, an anes­thet­ic, as the first drug in its three-drug pro­to­col. On May 27, Par Pharmaceutical, the pro­duc­er of Brevital, released a state­ment announc­ing efforts to pre­vent the use of their prod­uct in exe­cu­tions. The state­ment said, ​“The state of Indiana’s pro­posed use is con­trary to our…

The New Republic has just released autop­sy pho­tos tak­en after the Florida exe­cu­tion of Angel Diaz in 2006. The exe­cu­tion was so bad­ly botched that it prompt­ed then-Governor Jeb Bush to tem­porar­i­ly sus­pend exe­cu­tions so the state’s lethal injec­tion pro­ce­dure could be reviewed. The nee­dles that should have been insert­ed into Diaz’s veins were instead pushed through into the sur­round­ing tis­sue, caus­ing exten­sive chem­i­cal burns. Dr.

In a 5 – 2 rul­ing issued on May 19, the Georgia Supreme Court upheld the state’s law that hides the source and the iden­ti­ty of the pre­par­er of drugs and equip­ment used in exe­cu­tions. The court said, ​“We con­clude that Georgia’s exe­cu­tion process is like­ly made more time­ly and order­ly by the exe­cu­tion-par­tic­i­pant con­fi­den­tial­i­ty statute.…” The rul­ing lift­ed the stay of exe­cu­tion that was in place for Warren Hill, whose lawyers chal­lenged the law. In a dissent,…