Publications & Testimony

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…

On May 16, Texas Governor Rick Perry signed a bill known as the ​“Michael Morton Act” that will require pros­e­cu­tors to open their files to defen­dants and keep records of the evi­dence they dis­close. The Act is named for Michael Morton (pic­tured), who was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to life in prison in 1987. He was exon­er­at­ed in 2011 after DNA evi­dence revealed that some­one else had mur­dered his wife. Morton’s lawyers dis­cov­ered that the orig­i­nal pros­e­cu­tor had with­held evidence…

At a recent event at Willamette University in Oregon, var­i­ous state lead­ers in the fields of law and crim­i­nal jus­tice spoke crit­i­cal­ly about the state’s death penal­ty. Former Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul De Muniz (pic­tured) said the death penal­ty was ​“bad pub­lic pol­i­cy,” almost nev­er result­ing in an exe­cu­tion. He spoke of hav­ing defend­ed a mur­der­er sen­tenced to death in 1988. Twenty-five years lat­er, the Justice not­ed, he is now retired after a full…

The British man­u­fac­tur­er Hikma Pharmaceuticals recent­ly announced new rules to restrict the sup­ply of its prod­ucts for unin­tend­ed uses, such as car­ry­ing out exe­cu­tions in the United States. Earlier this year, Reprieve, a legal advo­ca­cy orga­ni­za­tion based in London, found that a U.S. sub­sidiary of Hikma sold 100 grams of phe­no­bar­bi­tal to the Arkansas Department of Corrections. Arkansas decid­ed to use the new, untest­ed drug in their lethal…

A recent arti­cle in The Nation by David Love, the Director of Witness to Innocence, under­scored the impor­tant role of peo­ple like Kirk Bloodsworth and Shujaa Graham (pic­tured), who were once on death row and now have been freed. These and many of the 140 oth­er peo­ple who have been exon­er­at­ed from death row have trav­eled the coun­try, speak­ing to leg­is­la­tors, stu­dents, church groups, and the gen­er­al pub­lic about the risks of…

Lawyers for Clemente Javier Aguirre recent­ly pre­sent­ed the results of DNA test­ing to a Florida court, cast­ing seri­ous doubt on his guilt. Aguirre was sen­tenced to death for the mur­der of two women in 2006. Although the DNA evi­dence was avail­able at the time of his tri­al, Aguirre’s tri­al lawyer nev­er request­ed test­ing of the crime-scene evi­dence. Aguirre’s cur­rent lawyers said that DNA results from dozens of items did not reveal Aguirre’s blood at the crime scene. Instead, the…