Publications & Testimony

In 2006, Ramiro Gonzales (pic­tured as a child) con­fessed to the mur­der, kid­nap­ping, and rape of Bridget Townsend and was sen­tenced to death. Texas death sen­tenc­ing pro­ce­dures unique­ly require cap­i­tal juries to pre­dict whether a defen­dant is like­ly to com­mit future acts of vio­lence. At Mr. Gonzales’ tri­al, psy­chi­a­trist Dr. Edward Gripon tes­ti­fied for the state and told the jury that Mr. Gonzales ​“has demon­strat­ed a ten­den­cy to want to con­trol, to manip­u­late, and to take advan­tage of certain…

On June 19, 2024, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals set aside 68-year-old Kerry Max Cook’s con­vic­tion, find­ing him to be ​“actu­al­ly inno­cent.” Describing Mr. Cook’s case as ​“one of the most notable mur­der cas­es of the last half-cen­tu­ry,” the major­i­ty opin­ion explains that ​“when it comes to sol­id sup­port for actu­al inno­cence, this case con­tains it all — uncon­tro­vert­ed Brady vio­la­tions, proof of false tes­ti­mo­ny, admis­sions of per­jury, and new sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence.” The Death Penalty Information…

On June 17, 2024, Anderson County District Attorney Allyson Mitchell filed a motion to set an exe­cu­tion date for Texas death row pris­on­er Robert Roberson, despite his stead­fast main­te­nance of inno­cence in the death of his two-year-old daugh­ter. Mr. Roberson has spent more than 20 years on death row for a crime that, accord­ing to the Innocence Project, ​“nev­er occurred and a con­vic­tion based on the out­dat­ed and now debunked shak­en baby hypoth­e­sis.” New evi­dence indi­cates that Mr. Roberson’s…

On June 19^th, or Juneteenth, the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) will cel­e­brate the open­ing of the Freedom Monument Sculpture Park, its lat­est muse­um in Montgomery, Alabama. The 17-acre site dis­plays con­tem­po­rary art­works, first-per­son nar­ra­tives, and his­tor­i­cal arti­facts which tell the sto­ries about the more than 10 mil­lion Black peo­ple who were enslaved in the United States. Visitors to the park will embark on a unique nar­ra­tive jour­ney that explores the nation’s his­to­ry of enslave­ment and…

This is the first in a new month­ly series cov­er­ing aca­d­e­m­ic research and arti­cles in the field of capital…

June 16, 2024, marks 80 years since South Carolina exe­cut­ed 14-year-old George Stinney Jr. Historical reports indi­cate that on March 24, 1944, Mr. Stinney and his younger sis­ter, Aime, were play­ing out­side when two white girls approached them, ask­ing where they could find a par­tic­u­lar flower. Neither Mr. Stinney nor his sis­ter knew where the young girls could find these flow­ers and they quick­ly moved along. That evening, when both young girls failed to return home, a search par­ty was sent to…

In the past two weeks, the Supreme Court over­turned grants of relief for two death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers. In both cas­es, low­er courts had found they received inef­fec­tive assis­tance of coun­sel at tri­al. The Court’s rul­ings are in line with its oth­er deci­sions in death penal­ty cas­es restrict­ing appeals for death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers and extolling the impor­tance of ​“final­i­ty” over merits-based…

On June 11, 2024, the Ohio Legislative Black Caucus (OLBC) held a press con­fer­ence high­light­ing the group’s leg­isla­tive pri­or­i­ties, which includ­ed the death penal­ty as a key con­cern. Noting ​“the racial cycle of injus­tice per­pe­trat­ed by the death penal­ty,” State Representative Terrence Upchurch, who is also the pres­i­dent of the OLBC, insist­ed that leg­isla­tive lead­er­ship move toward ​“dis­man­tling this flawed sys­tem and estab­lish­ing a new lega­cy of equal­i­ty and jus­tice in…

A June 2024 peti­tion filed in the Prince William County, Virginia Circuit Court, accus­es for­mer Commonwealth Attorney (CA) Paul Ebert of with­hold­ing excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence dur­ing the tri­al of Louis Jefferson Dukes Jr., who, along with his nephew Lonnie Weeks Jr., was con­vict­ed of mur­der­ing a state troop­er in 1994 dur­ing a traf­fic stop. Mr. Dukes was found guilty and sen­tenced to life in prison, while Mr. Weeks was found guilty, received the death penal­ty, and was exe­cut­ed in 2000. In the…

On June 4, 2024, the Missouri Supreme Court set a September 24, 2024, exe­cu­tion date for death-sen­tenced pris­on­er Marcellus Williams (pic­tured), despite seri­ous doubts that he was not involved in the mur­der for which he is incar­cer­at­ed. The announce­ment came just hours after the state Supreme Court ruled that Governor Mike Parson did not vio­late any rules when he dis­solved a board of inquiry estab­lished in June 2023 by his pre­de­ces­sor, Eric Greitens, to inves­ti­gate Mr. William’s claim of…