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…

In a recent op-ed in the Washington Post, a vic­tim’s fam­i­ly mem­ber in Missouri described her mixed feel­ings about the death penal­ty and the exe­cu­tions that have occurred there. Laura Friedman wrote,​“Death penal­ty sup­port­ers talk of clo­sure. That may work as a mat­ter of process — exe­cu­tion rids the state and the jus­tice sys­tem of any fur­ther involve­ment — but it is much more com­pli­cat­ed for fam­i­lies of vic­tims. Each…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…