Publications & Testimony

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram announced a change in its stance on the death penal­ty in a recent edi­to­r­i­al mark­ing the 500^th exe­cu­tion in Texas. While the news­pa­per had pre­vi­ous­ly endorsed a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions, it now sup­ports the abo­li­tion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. The edi­tors said that moral grounds alone are enough to war­rant end­ing the death penal­ty, but they also cit­ed a vari­ety of prob­lems in Texas’s use of the death penal­ty, includ­ing geo­graph­i­cal and racial dis­par­i­ties in…

An Ohio Supreme Court com­mit­tee appoint­ed to study the death penal­ty recent­ly made rec­om­men­da­tions on how the state’s cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem can lessen the impact of racial bias. The com­mit­tee rec­om­mend­ed lim­it­ing the death penal­ty to few­er cas­es, focus­ing on those involv­ing mul­ti­ple vic­tims, those involv­ing vic­tims under the age of 13, killings of police offi­cers, and crimes com­mit­ted to elim­i­nate wit­ness­es. The pro­pos­al attempts to remove the influ­ence of race in capital…

On June 26, lawyers in Florida filed a law­suit chal­leng­ing the 2013 Timely Justice Act, a law signed by Gov. Rick Scott ear­li­er in June. The Act could accel­er­ate exe­cu­tions by requir­ing the gov­er­nor to sign a death war­rant with­in 30 days of a Supreme Court review, pro­vid­ed the gov­er­nor deter­mines that the clemen­cy process is com­plete. An exe­cu­tion must fol­low with­in 180 days. The law­suit was filed by the Capital Collateral Regional Counsel, a…

On June 25 (Tuesday), the Oklahoma Supreme Court sus­pend­ed for­mer Oklahoma County pros­e­cu­tor Robert Bradley Miller for his mis­con­duct in mur­der tri­als that even­tu­al­ly led to the release of two death row inmates. In 2006, a fed­er­al judge dis­missed the mur­der con­vic­tions of Paris Powell and Yancy Douglas after find­ing that a deal made between the pros­e­cu­tor and the key wit­ness in the case was nev­er dis­closed to the defense…

Kimberly McCarthy (pic­tured), who is fac­ing exe­cu­tion on June 26, is sched­uled to become the 500^th per­son exe­cut­ed in Texas since 1976. McCarthy’s attor­ney, Maurie Levin, recent­ly filed a new motion to stay the exe­cu­tion because racial dis­crim­i­na­tion and inad­e­quate legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion played sig­nif­i­cant roles in McCarthy’s case. According to the fil­ing, only four non-white poten­tial jurors made it to the final selec­tion from an ini­tial pool of 64 prospective…

The Oregon Supreme Court ruled that Governor John Kitzhaber may delay the exe­cu­tions of the state’s death row inmates dur­ing his term of office. In 2011, Kitzhaber insti­tut­ed a mora­to­ri­um on all exe­cu­tions in the state, say­ing, ​“I refuse to be a part of this com­pro­mised and inequitable sys­tem any longer; and I will not allow fur­ther exe­cu­tions while I am Governor.” That deci­sion was chal­lenged by death row inmate Gary Haugen, who had waived his appeals in order to speed up…

Steve Monks, a for­mer Durham County, North Carolina, GOP Chair, recent­ly called for an end to the death penal­ty in the…

On June 12 – 15, polit­i­cal lead­ers and crim­i­nal jus­tice experts from five con­ti­nents gath­ered in Madrid, Spain, for the Fifth World Congress Against the Death Penalty. The World Congress was co-spon­sored by Spain, France, Norway, and Switzerland, and includ­ed del­e­gates from over 90 coun­tries. The del­e­ga­tion from the United States includ­ed Jerry Givens, a for­mer cor­rec­tion­al offi­cer in Virginia, who assist­ed with the exe­cu­tion of 62 inmates. Givens became an oppo­nent of the…

On June 12, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) held that for­mer death row inmate Jerry Hartfield has been held in prison for 33 years despite hav­ing no valid con­vic­tion. The court con­clud­ed: ​“The sta­tus of the judg­ment of con­vic­tion is that Petitioner is under no con­vic­tion or sen­tence.” Hartfield, an illit­er­ate man with an IQ of 51, had his cap­i­tal con­vic­tion over­turned by the same court in 1980 because his tri­al jury was improp­er­ly select­ed. The…