Publications & Testimony

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…

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…

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…

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…

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.

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…

Gary Alvord, a Florida inmate who spent more time on death row than any oth­er con­demned pris­on­er in the coun­try, died on May 19, 2013, of nat­ur­al caus­es. Alvord was 66 years old and had been sen­tenced to death for mur­der almost 40 years before, on April 9, 1974. He suf­fered from schiz­o­phre­nia and had no close fam­i­ly. In the time Alvord spent on death row, 75 oth­er inmates were exe­cut­ed in Florida, many of whom spent half as long on 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,…

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…

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…