Publications & Testimony

Maryland​’s death penal­ty repeal leg­is­la­tion will take effect as sched­uled on October 1, 2013 after its oppo­nents were unsuc­cess­ful in secur­ing the num­ber of sig­na­tures required to put the issue on the November 2014 bal­lot. Efforts to put Maryland’s death penal­ty to a statewide vote were led by Baltimore County State’s Attorney Scott D. Shellenberger and a group called MDPetitions​.com. On May 31, the group announced that it only col­lect­ed about 15,000 sig­na­tures, falling short…

On May 23, lawyers for Georgia death row inmate Warren Hill (pic­tured) peti­tioned the U.S. Supreme Court to pre­vent his exe­cu­tion, cit­ing strong evi­dence that Hill has an intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty. Three men­tal health experts who tes­ti­fied in 2000 that Hill did not have an intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty have now changed their mind about the inmate’s men­tal health. According to the peti­tion, ​“all sev­en men­tal health experts who have ever eval­u­at­ed Hill, both the…

On May 28, 2013, the Court ruled (5 – 4) in Trevino v. Thaler that death row inmates in Texas can raise claims of inef­fec­tive­ness of coun­sel for the first time in fed­er­al court if they did not have a mean­ing­ful chance to raise the claim in state appeals. The Court held that its rul­ing in Martinez v. Ryan (2012), which pro­vid­ed such a right in an Arizona case where state law for­bids rais­ing the…

William Zervakos, jury fore­man for the Jodi Arias tri­al, recent­ly shared the chal­lenges of being a part of a cap­i­tal jury. Zervakos described jury delib­er­a­tions in Arias’s case as a ​“bru­tal no-win sit­u­a­tion” that was ​“unfair.” He said that the delib­er­a­tions were full of tears as each juror con­sid­ered whether they should sen­tence Jodi Arias to death or life in prison. He said, ​“We’re not lawyers. We can’t inter­pret the law. We’re mere mor­tals. And I will tell…

The Kansas City Star recent­ly called for an end to the death penal­ty in Kansas and Missouri. The edi­tors wrote, ​“The arc of his­to­ry is bend­ing toward jus­tice when it comes to the death penal­ty, and there’s no good rea­son Missouri and Kansas should lag behind and con­tin­ue to be on the wrong side of both his­to­ry and jus­tice.” The high costs of imple­ment­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment and the risks of wrong­ful exe­cu­tions were among the reasons…

On May 22, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled (2 – 1) that the fed­er­al District Court over­stepped its author­i­ty when it barred any fur­ther pros­e­cu­tion of Justin Wolfe. The Circuit Court upheld the low­er court’s order requir­ing Virginia to either retry Wolfe or release him, and it fur­ther held that Virginia failed to com­ply with that order. In 2002, Wolfe was con­vict­ed of con­spir­a­cy and sen­tenced to death in the mur­der of a…

On May 22, Governor John Hickenlooper of Colorado grant­ed an indef­i­nite stay of exe­cu­tion to Nathan Dunlap, who was fac­ing exe­cu­tion in August. In his Executive Order, the gov­er­nor expressed con­cerns about the state’s death penal­ty sys­tem, call­ing it flawed and inequitable. He also not­ed the nation­al trend away from cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, with five states recent­ly vot­ing to repeal the death penal­ty and oth­er states rarely using it. Hickenlooper stat­ed, ​“If the…

Gary Alvord, a Florida inmate who spent more time on death row than any oth­er inmate in the coun­try, died on May 19 of nat­ur­al caus­es. Alvord was 66 years old and had been sen­tenced to death for mur­der almost 40 years ago, on April 9, 1974. He suf­fered from schiz­o­phre­nia and had no close fam­i­ly. Bill Sheppard, who rep­re­sent­ed Alvord for almost four decades, said, ​“Gary is a prod­uct of a sick sys­tem. He was a liv­ing exam­ple of why we should not have the death…

The for­mer Chief Deputy District Attorney from the coun­ty that pros­e­cut­ed Nathan Dunlap has called on Colorado’s gov­er­nor to com­mute his death sen­tence to life with­out parole. Richard Bloch (pic­tured), who pros­e­cut­ed dozens of homi­cide cas­es dur­ing his 20 years with the Arapahoe County DA’s office, said he believes the state’s cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem is too bro­ken to imple­ment: ​“Having worked on many homi­cides, vis­it­ed dozens of murder…