Publications & Testimony

Georgia and Missouri each car­ried out an exe­cu­tion on June 17 and 18 respec­tive­ly, mark­ing the first exe­cu­tions since the botched lethal injec­tion of Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma on April 29. Georgia exe­cut­ed Marcus Wellons (l.) after chal­lenges to the state’s lethal injec­tion secre­cy law were denied. One of the judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11^th Circuit that allowed the exe­cu­tion wrote sep­a­rate­ly of the…

The most recent issue of The Angolite, a mag­a­zine writ­ten and pub­lished by pris­on­ers at Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, which hous­es the state’s death row, con­tains a num­ber of arti­cles rel­e­vant to the death penal­ty. The first, ​“Shifting Values,” dis­cuss­es the declin­ing use of the death penal­ty through an exam­i­na­tion of devel­op­ments in 2013. A sec­ond arti­cle, ​“Death House Cat & Mouse,” reports on Louisiana’s com­pli­cat­ed strug­gle to obtain lethal injection…

On June 12, the Supreme Court of Florida (6 – 1) over­turned the con­vic­tions and death sen­tence of Carl Dausch because the state pre­sent­ed insuf­fi­cient evi­dence of his guilt at tri­al. The Court direct­ed that he be acquit­ted of all offens­es, stat­ing, “[T]he record lacks suf­fi­cient evi­dence of the per­pe­tra­tor’s iden­ti­ty.” Dausch was con­vict­ed pri­mar­i­ly on fin­ger­prints and DNA from a cig­a­rette butt that were found in the vic­tim’s car. DNA evi­dence tak­en from the…

The American Bar Association has released a new pub­li­ca­tion, The State of Criminal Justice 2014, exam­in­ing major issues, trends and sig­nif­i­cant changes in America’s crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem. The chap­ter devot­ed to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment was writ­ten by Ronald Tabak, an attor­ney at Skadden Arps. Tabak presents evi­dence of the declin­ing use of the death penal­ty in death sen­tences and exe­cu­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly not­ing the grow­ing geo­graph­ic iso­la­tion of the…

California announced plans to add a 40-bed psy­cha­tric hos­pi­tal to its death row at San Quentin to treat deeply dis­turbed inmates in need of 24-hour care for men­tal ill­ness. In 2013 a fed­er­al judge ordered the state to pro­vide death-row inmates access to inpa­tient psy­chi­atric treat­ment. Following court-ordered men­tal eval­u­a­tions, the state iden­ti­fied 37 men with severe men­tal ill­ness­es requir­ing full-time care. Attorney Michael Bien, who argued the case that prompt­ed the…

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…