Publications & Testimony

On August 30, 2023, the Tennessee Criminal Court of Appeals affirmed a low­er court’s rul­ing that for­mer­ly death-sen­tenced pris­on­er Pervis Payne can serve his two life sen­tences con­cur­rent­ly, mak­ing him eli­gi­ble to apply for parole in less than four years. Shelby County Criminal Court Judge Paula Skahan resen­tenced Mr. Payne in 2022 to two life sen­tences with the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole after pros­e­cu­tors con­ced­ed that they could not dis­prove Mr. Payne’s claim that he is intel­lec­tu­al­ly disabled…

Former Denver Chief Deputy District Attorney Craig Silverman recent­ly wrote about why he changed his mind about sup­port­ing the death penal­ty and expressed new fears regard­ing its future use. His op-ed was pub­lished on August 29, 2023 in the Colorado Sun. Mr. Silverman writes that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment was a promi­nent issue in his cam­paign for Denver District Attorney, and he him­self pros­e­cut­ed death penal­ty cas­es and pub­licly sup­port­ed its use. But he writes that he now has ​“new­found support…

Larry Hudson has been added to DPIC’s Descriptions of Innocence page as a new­ly-dis­cov­ered death row exon­er­a­tion. Mr. Hudson was tried and sen­tenced to death for a rob­bery-homi­cide in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1967, when he was 19 years old. He was exon­er­at­ed in 1993, when he was 46 years…

On August 25, 2023, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall asked the state Supreme Court to set a date for Kenneth Smith to be exe­cut­ed using nitro­gen hypox­ia, a method that has nev­er been used in any state. The deci­sion to use this method comes after Alabama botched sev­er­al exe­cu­tions. Since 2018, when Alabama ini­tial­ly autho­rized the use of nitro­gen hypox­ia in cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, the state has been work­ing to estab­lish a pro­to­col for exe­cu­tions using this method. Alabama initially…

In July 2023, legal schol­ars, a civ­il rights group, and var­i­ous orga­ni­za­tions which advo­cate for vic­tims of domes­tic and gen­der-based vio­lence filed ami­cus briefs in sup­port of two death-sen­tenced female pris­on­ers, Brenda Andrew and Brittany Holberg. Both ami­cus briefs allege that gen­der bias in their cas­es denied them fair…

A recent law review arti­cle crit­i­cizes the U.S. Supreme Court’s use of its ​‘shad­ow dock­et’ in cap­i­tal cas­es, par­tic­u­lar­ly in recent years. The Capital Shadow Docket and the Death of Judicial Restraint, by Professor Jenny-Brooke Condon, explains that the Court ​“invokes judi­cial restraint to jus­ti­fy its refusal to sec­ond-guess the cru­el­ty of chal­lenged exe­cu­tion meth­ods or when Justices cite fed­er­al­ism-based ratio­nales for refus­ing to delay state enforce­ment of a death sen­tences … And yet on…

At an August 15, 2023 ral­ly orga­nized by The Promise for Justice Initiative, a group opposed to the death penal­ty and which advo­cates for greater change in the crim­i­nal legal sys­tem, fam­i­ly mem­bers of vic­tims and pris­on­ers and death row exoneree Shareef Cousin called on the Board of Pardons and Committee on Parole to grant the 56 clemen­cy appli­ca­tions that have been sub­mit­ted by pris­on­ers on death row. ​“Part of clemen­cy is real­ly about giv­ing the oppor­tu­ni­ty to the sur­vivors of these crimes…

On August 18, 2023, a mil­i­tary judge in Guantanamo Bay over­see­ing the pre­tri­al cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tion of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the Saudi nation­al accused of orga­niz­ing the October 2000 bomb­ing of the U.S.S. Cole, exclud­ed Mr. al-Nishiri’s con­fes­sions as the prod­uct of tor­ture. ​“Exclusion of such evi­dence is not with­out soci­etal costs,” said the judge, Col. Lanny J. Acosta Jr., in a 50-page deci­sion. ​“However, per­mit­ting the admis­sion of evi­dence obtained by or derived from tor­ture by the same…

On August 16, 2023, Michael Cummins, who was fac­ing the death penal­ty for the 2019 killings of eight indi­vid­u­als in rur­al Tennessee, pled guilty to all eight counts of first-degree mur­der in exchange for life in prison with­out parole. Sumner County District Attorney Ray Whitley told the press that he had reversed his deci­sion to seek a death sen­tence and agreed to the plea based on new evi­dence regard­ing Mr. Cummins’ men­tal health. That evi­dence includ­ed Mr. Cummins’ brain scans, which showed…

Two of the five mem­bers of the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board, which con­sid­ers the clemen­cy peti­tions of the state’s death row pris­on­ers, have resigned. Board chair­man Richard Smothermon and mem­ber Cathy Stocker both announced that the board’s August 2023 meet­ing would be their last. Governor Kevin Stitt has appoint­ed for­mer District Attorney Kevin Buchanan to replace Ms. Stocker, while Mr. Smothermon’s replace­ment will be select­ed by the Oklahoma Supreme…