Publications & Testimony

New evi­dence in the case of Cameron Todd Willingham sug­gests Texas may have exe­cut­ed an inno­cent man in 2004. The key evi­dence pre­sent­ed against Willingham at tri­al was from an arson ​“expert,” who said the fire that killed Willingham’s chil­dren was inten­tion­al­ly set. That evi­dence has since been dis­cred­it­ed by a series of oth­er experts who con­clud­ed the evi­dence did not sup­port arson. Now attor­neys for the Innocence Project have uncov­ered a…

On February 24, the U.S. Supreme Court unan­i­mous­ly ordered an Alabama court to recon­sid­er the case of Anthony Hinton, who has main­tained his inno­cence since he was sen­tenced to death 28 years ago. Mr. Hinton’s lawyer wrong­ly believed that he could spend only $1,000 on a firearms expert dur­ing the tri­al, and as a result, hired a wit­ness whom he knew was unqual­i­fied, and who the Court said was ​“bad­ly dis­cred­it­ed” by the pros­e­cu­tion. Hinton’s appel­late lawyers…

In an op-ed in the Seattle Times, two for­mer Washington state cor­rec­tions offi­cials voiced their sup­port of Gov. Jay Inslee’s deci­sion to put exe­cu­tions on hold. Dick Morgan (pic­tured, L), a for­mer Director of Prisons, and Eldon Vail (pic­tured, R), for­mer Secretary of the Washington Department of Corrections, wrote about their par­tic­i­pa­tion in the state’s 5 exe­cu­tions, say­ing, ​“We have wit­nessed vis­i­bly shak­en staff car­ry out a ques­tion­able law that…

In a dis­sent from a deci­sion by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit allow­ing Missouri’s exe­cu­tion of Michael Taylor on February 26, three judges sharply crit­i­cized the secre­cy of Missouri’s lethal injec­tion pro­to­col as a vio­la­tion of Taylor’s right to due process. The dis­senters would have stayed the exe­cu­tion to allow Taylor to obtain infor­ma­tion about the source of the execution…

Dr. Allen Ault, the for­mer war­den for Georgia​’s exe­cu­tions, recent­ly spoke about the lin­ger­ing psy­cho­log­i­cal effects of car­ry­ing out the death penal­ty. Ault, who retired in 1995, said, ​“I still have night­mares. [Execution is] the most pre­med­i­tat­ed form of mur­der you can pos­si­bly imag­ine and it stays in your psy­che for­ev­er.” He said he felt guilt after the elec­tro­cu­tion of a men­tal­ly dis­abled juve­nile offend­er, who devel­oped a deep sense of con­tri­tion during…

According to a recent study by Professor Katherine Beckett of the University of Washington, jurors in Washington are three times more like­ly to rec­om­mend a death sen­tence for a black defen­dant than for a white defen­dant in a sim­i­lar case. The dis­par­i­ty in sen­tenc­ing occurred despite the fact that pros­e­cu­tors were slight­ly more like­ly to seek the death penal­ty against white…

On March 3, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral argu­ments in Hall v. Florida, a case address­ing the strict stan­dard for intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty that Florida uses to deter­mine if inmates are exempt from exe­cu­tion. Under the Court’s 2002 deci­sion in Atkins v. Virginia, indi­vid­u­als with intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ties (men­tal retar­da­tion) are con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly barred from receiv­ing the death penal­ty. The decision…

County admin­is­tra­tors in Washington state say a sin­gle death penal­ty case could cause bank­rupt­cy in their coun­ty. Court costs are paid at a coun­ty lev­el, mean­ing a lengthy and expen­sive death penal­ty tri­al can seri­ous­ly threat­en the coun­ty’s abil­i­ty to pay for oth­er pri­or­i­ties. Jim Jones, the for­mer pres­i­dent of the Washington County Administrative Association, said sev­er­al coun­ties told him, ​“If we had a death penal­ty case, and had to pay $1 mil­lion (in legal costs), we’d go…

One of the strongest accounts point­ing to the exe­cu­tion of a prob­a­bly inno­cent man in recent times con­cerns the case of Carlos DeLuna, who was exe­cut­ed in Texas in 1989. In a forth­com­ing book, The Wrong Carlos: Anatomy of a Wrongful Execution, Professor James Liebman of Columbia Law School describes his inves­ti­ga­tion into the case, along with a team of stu­dents. The inves­ti­ga­tion uncov­ered seri­ous prob­lems in DeLuna’s case, including…