Publications & Testimony

On June 5, leg­is­la­tors in North Carolina vot­ed to repeal the Racial Justice Act, which had allowed death row inmates to chal­lenge their sen­tences using sta­tis­ti­cal evi­dence of racial bias. Since the law took effect in 2009, most of the inmates fac­ing exe­cu­tion in North Carolina appealed their sen­tence under the law. In 2012, Marcus Robinson, who was the first defen­dant to receive a hear­ing under the RJA, was re-sen­­tenced to life without…

On May 30, California’s First District Court of Appeals upheld a Superior Court rul­ing that found the state’s lethal injec­tion pro­to­col invalid because the California Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation failed to com­ply with the require­ments of the Administrative Procedures Act. A spokesman for the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said that no deci­sion has been made on whether the rul­ing will be appealed to the California Supreme Court or if the…

In a forth­com­ing arti­cle in the Washington and Lee Law Review, Ty Alper (pic­tured), Clinical Professor of Law at the University of California at Berkeley, exam­ines how recent U.S. Supreme Court deci­sions may affect the abil­i­ty of defen­dants to raise claims of inef­fec­tive assis­tance of coun­sel. Although the right to effec­tive coun­sel is con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly guar­an­teed, most defen­dants, espe­cial­ly those charged with non-cap­i­­tal crimes, do not have…

A June 3 edi­to­r­i­al in the Sun Sentinel called on Florida Governor Rick Scott (pic­tured) to veto the Timely Justice Act, a bill passed by the leg­is­la­ture ear­li­er this year that would accel­er­ate exe­cu­tions. The bill requires the gov­er­nor to sign a death war­rant with­in 30 days of a Supreme Court review, with an exe­cu­tion to fol­low with­in 180 days. According to the edi­to­r­i­al, flaws in the sys­tem, evi­denced by death row…

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…

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…

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…