Publications & Testimony
Items: 11 — 20
Sep 18, 2024
Broad Coalition Supports Robert Roberson’s Clemency Petition
On September 17, 2024, attorneys for Texas death row prisoner Robert Roberson filed a clemency petition accompanied by letters from hundreds of supporters, including eminent scientists and medical professionals, a bipartisan group of Texas legislators, and former lead Detective Brian Wharton, urging the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and Governor Greg Abbott to reduce Mr. Roberson’s sentence. Mr. Roberson is currently scheduled to be executed on October 17, 2024. He was convicted and…
Read MoreSep 17, 2024
Article of Interest: Former U.S. Judge Andy Lester Calls on Oklahoma to Implement Reforms to “Badly Broken” Capital Punishment System Before Continuing Executions
“From start to finish, it is so badly broken that we cannot know whether someone who has been condemned to death is actually deserving of the ultimate penalty,” wrote former U.S. Magistrate Judge Andy Lester in a September 12, 2024 op-ed for The Oklahoman. Before carrying out any new executions, Mr. Lester calls on the state to implement new reforms to its “broken” capital punishment system. Although the Oklahoma Death Penalty Review Commission provided 45 specific recommendations and…
Read MoreSep 16, 2024
NEW RESOURCE: American Bar Association Reports on Capital Punishment and the State of Criminal Justice 2024
The American Bar Association’s Criminal Justice Section has announced its forthcoming annual report, The State of Criminal Justice 2024, examining the state of the American criminal legal…
Read MoreSep 13, 2024
Ignoring Credible Innocence Claims, St. Louis County Circuit Court Denies Prosecutor’s Motion to Vacate Marcellus Williams’ Conviction and Death Sentence
On September 12, 2024, the Missouri Circuit Court for St. Louis County denied Prosecuting Attorney (PA) Wesley Bell’s motion to vacate Marcellus Williams’ conviction and death sentence for the 1998 murder of Felicia Gayle. Judge Bruce F. Hilton denied PA Bell’s motion, writing that “there is no basis for a court to find that [Mr.] Williams is innocent, and no court has made such a finding.” Judge Hilton added that the court was not presented with evidence showing that the previous…
Read MoreSep 12, 2024
Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Dismisses New Evidence of Innocence and Denies Robert Roberson Habeas Relief
On September 11, 2024, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) dismissed Robert Roberson’s request for habeas relief without reviewing the merits of any of his five claims, citing a failure to meet procedural requirements, despite the inclusion of new, previously unavailable medical and scientific evidence in the application. The TCCA also denied Mr. Roberson’s motion for a stay of execution, which remains scheduled for October 17, 2024.
Read MoreSep 11, 2024
See What Utah Spent on Its First Execution in 14 Years
Taberon Honie was an American Indian from the Hopi-Tewa community whose life was marked by poverty, substance abuse, and generational trauma. His parents were forced to attend Indian boarding schools, which were notoriously abusive and designed to strip Indian children of their cultural heritage. They later suffered from alcoholism and neglected Mr. Honie and his siblings. Mr. Honie first tried alcohol at age 5 and progressed to heroin and meth by the time he was a teenager.
Read MoreSep 10, 2024
Idaho Court Dismisses Longest-Serving Death Row Prisoner’s Post-Conviction Claim Against a Second Execution Attempt
On September 5, 2024, Idaho’s Fourth Judicial District Court dismissed death-sentenced prisoner Thomas Creech’s post-conviction claim, which sought to prevent a second execution attempt on the grounds that it would violate the Fifth Amendment’s double jeopardy clause, Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment, and equivalent state constitutional provisions. The state’s first attempt to execute Mr. Creech on February 28, 2024 was halted because correctional staff…
Read MoreSep 09, 2024
Article of Interest: Author John Grisham Says Texas Plans to Execute Robert Roberson, An Innocent Man
Best-selling author of The Innocent Man and former criminal defense lawyer John Grisham “never, not once” believed that any of the hundreds of clients he represented were wrongfully convicted. In a September 5, 2024, op-ed, Mr. Grisham writes that he just assumed the criminal justice system always got it right. Now, writing for the second time about Robert Roberson’s case, Mr. Grisham acknowledges that was “a wrong assumption.” He argues that “Robert Roberson is innocent because the…
Read MoreSep 06, 2024
St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Concedes Constitutional Errors in Marcellus Williams’ Conviction and Death Sentence, Urges the Court to Vacate His Conviction
On August 28, 2024, a St. Louis County Circuit Court judge held an evidentiary hearing for Marcellus Williams (pictured), who has long maintained his innocence in the 1998 murder of Felicia Gayle. At this hearing, the office of St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney (PA) Wesley Bell conceded that the prior administration, under Prosecuting Attorney Bob McCullogh, committed constitutional errors contributing to Mr. Williams’ unreliable conviction and death sentence. These errors include the…
Read MoreSep 05, 2024
Research Roundup: Revisiting David Baldus’s Study to Examine Modern Day Use of the Death Penalty
DPI’s new series focuses on academic research and articles in the field of capital punishment. This month’s article is “Sacred Victims: Fifty Years of Data on Victim Race and Sex as Predictors of Execution,” in The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, co-authored by Professors Scott Phillips (Department of Sociology & Criminology), Justin Marceau, Sam Kamin, and a J.D. program alumna, Nicole King, from the Sturm College of Law at the University of…
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