Publications & Testimony

After the botched exe­cu­tion of Clayton Lockett on April 29, Oklahoma offi­cials sent his body to Texas for an inde­pen­dent autop­sy. Now it appears that Texas will with­hold impor­tant infor­ma­tion revealed in the course of the autop­sy from the pub­lic at Oklahoma’s request. The autop­sy was per­formed by the Dallas County Medical Examiner’s Office. Earlier, Michael Thompson, Commissioner of the Oklahoma Department of Public Safety, said the Lockett…

On July 16, U.S. District Court Judge Cormac Carney (pic­tured) held that the delays and arbi­trari­ness of California​’s death penal­ty sys­tem ren­dered it uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. Judge Carney vacat­ed the death sen­tence of Ernest Jones, who has spent near­ly 20 years on death row. On August 21, California Attorney General Kamala Harris announced the state will appeal the rul­ing to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Below are excerpts from Judge Carney’s…

A law­suit filed in fed­er­al court in Oklahoma on August 25 by var­i­ous news orga­ni­za­tions, includ­ing the Oklahoma Observer and the Guardian US, seeks to give media wit­ness­es a more com­plete view of exe­cu­tions than is cur­rent­ly allowed. The peti­tion alleges that the right to wit­ness the entire exe­cu­tion is pro­tect­ed by the First Amendment, stat­ing, ​“The abil­i­ty of the press to wit­ness the par­tic­u­lar facts and cir­cum­stances of…

After Ohio​’s two-hour attempt­ed exe­cu­tion of Rommel Broom (pic­tured) in 2009, it explored alter­na­tive meth­ods, includ­ing an intra­mus­cu­lar injec­tion of mida­zo­lam and hydro­mor­phone. Gregory Trout, an attor­ney with the state Department of Rehabilitation and Correction expressed con­cerns to Dr. Mark Dershwitz, the state’s expert wit­ness on lethal injec­tions, about whether these drugs would result in ​“gasp­ing for air in a hyper­ven­ti­lat­ing fash­ion, with eyes still…

The Republican Liberty Caucus of Kansas has offi­cial­ly announced its oppo­si­tion to the death penal­ty. The Caucus chair, Dave Thomas, said, ​“Any time you give the gov­ern­ment a pow­er that can be abused, it will or may be abused in the future. And tak­ing a cit­i­zen’s life is kind of the ulti­mate pow­er the gov­ern­ment can have.” The Caucus joined sev­er­al Republcan leg­is­la­tors, such as Sen. Carolyn McGinn and Rep. Steve Becker, in sup­port­ing repeal of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. The Kansas…

Dr. Joel Zivot, an anes­the­si­ol­o­gist at Emory University, recent­ly wit­nessed an exe­cu­tion in Georgia and wrote about the pres­ence of two physi­cians dur­ing the lethal injec­tion he observed. He quot­ed the Medical Practice Act describ­ing the role of doc­tors as those ​“engaged in the diag­no­sis or treat­ment of dis­ease, defects, or injuries of human beings.” However, he not­ed, ​“Life is not a dis­ease, defect, or injury. Nothing in the Medical Practice Act autho­rizes a…

In a recent inter­view, Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper stat­ed his oppo­si­tion to the death penal­ty, cit­ing the views of mur­der vic­tims’ fam­i­ly mem­bers and the high cost of imple­ment­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Hickenlooper said he had sup­port­ed the death penal­ty until he learned more about it. ​“My whole life I was in favor of the death penal­ty,” he said, ​“But then you get all this infor­ma­tion: it costs 10 times, maybe 15 times more mon­ey to exe­cute some­one than to put someone…

In the recent pro­longed exe­cu­tion of Joseph Wood in Arizona, the state appar­ent­ly veered from its exe­cu­tion pro­to­col when it employed 15 dos­es of lethal injec­tion drugs, rather than just a sin­gle dose fol­lowed by a sec­ond appli­ca­tion, if nec­es­sary, as stat­ed in its reg­u­la­tions. There have been numer­ous oth­er instances in which the state appeared to depart from its pro­to­col. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit crit­i­cized the state in 2012, saying…

Former Texas Governor Mark White and for­mer FBI direc­tor William Sessions have peti­tioned Texas to grant clemen­cy to death row inmate Max Soffar because of the strong chance that a rever­sal of his con­vic­tion will come too late due to his rapid­ly declin­ing med­ical con­di­tion. Soffar’s case has been reversed before, and his lat­est appeal is pend­ing before a fed­er­al court. Soffar’s sup­port­ers are ask­ing that he…