Publications & Testimony

Executions have been on hold in Kentucky since 2010, when Franklin Circuit Judge Philip Shepherd began a review of the state’s lethal injection protocol. The state revised its protocol in 2012 to call for a one-drug method, with a two-drug method as a backup if specific drugs were not available. Now, that new protocol is also being scrutinized because it calls for the same drugs that caused the botched execution of Dennis McGuire in Ohio. Corrections officials say they don’t know if any lethal…

Sabrina Butler (pictured), the only woman among the 144 people exonerated from death row since 1973, recently told her story in TIME Magainze. Butler was just 17 years old when she went to check on her infant son and found he had stopped breathing. She attempted to resuscitate him and rushed him to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead. The next day, a detective accused Butler of murdering her son. “I was alone with no lawyer or parent with me. I told him I tried to save my baby. He…

As states continue to seek alternative drugs and drug sources for lethal injections, three significant developments occurred last week. Indiana announced recently that they would use Brevital, an anesthetic, as the first drug in its three-drug protocol. On May 27, Par Pharmaceutical, the producer of Brevital, released a statement announcing efforts to prevent the use of their product in executions. The statement said, “The state of Indiana’s proposed use is contrary to our mission. Par is…

The New Republic has just released autopsy photos taken after the Florida execution of Angel Diaz in 2006. The execution was so badly botched that it prompted then-Governor Jeb Bush to temporarily suspend executions so the state’s lethal injection procedure could be reviewed. The needles that should have been inserted into Diaz’s veins were instead pushed through into the surrounding tissue, causing extensive chemical burns. Dr. Jonathan Groner, a professor of clinical surgery at Ohio State…

In a 5 – 2 ruling issued on May 19, the Georgia Supreme Court upheld the state’s law that hides the source and the identity of the preparer of drugs and equipment used in executions. The court said, “We conclude that Georgia’s execution process is likely made more timely and orderly by the execution-participant confidentiality statute….” The ruling lifted the stay of execution that was in place for Warren Hill, whose lawyers challenged the law. In a dissent, Justice Robert Benham referenced the…

I Am Troy Davis is a recent book by Jen Marlowe and Troy Davis’ sister, Martina Davis-Correia, that tells the story of a possibly innocent man who was executed in Georgia in 2011. Troy Davis was sentenced to death for the murder of a police officer in Savannah. Years later evidence casting doubts about his guilt emerged, including recantations from several of the witnesses who had testified against him. Pope Benedict XVI, President Jimmy Carter, and 51 members of Congress petitioned for his…

On May 27, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Hall v. Florida that Florida’s strict IQ cutoff for determining intellectual disability in capital cases is unconstitutional. The Court concluded, “Florida’s law contravenes our Nation’s commitment to dignity and its duty to teach human decency as the mark of a civilized world.” In 2002, the Court banned the execution of people with “mental retardation,” but allowed states leeway in selecting a process for determining who would qualify for that…

On May 22, Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam signed into law a bill that will allow the state to use the electric chair in executions if lethal injection drugs are not available. While seven states, including Tennessee, allow inmates to choose the electric chair as their method of execution, no other state forces inmates to be executed by that method. Defense attorney David Raybin, who helped draft Tennessee’s death penalty law in the 1970s, said that changing the execution method retroactively would…

The Bureau of Justice Statistics recently issued a new report, “Capital Punishment, 2012,” analyzing the use of the death penalty in that year and revealing overall trends since the death penalty was reinstated. The report noted that 2012 was “the twelfth consecutive year in which the number of inmates under sentence of death decreased.” Among the statistics not reported elsewhere, BJS noted that the time between sentencing and execution in 2012 was 15.8 years. The average time for all…

UPDATE: The U.S. Supreme Court issued a stay of execution, pending the outcome of a review by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8^th Circuit. The Court further noted: “We leave for further consideration in the lower courts whether an evidentiary hearing is necessary.” Earlier: On May 20, just hours before a scheduled execution in Missouri, the U.S. Supreme Court, acting through Justice Samuel Alito, granted a temporary stay to Russell Bucklew. Bucklew has a congenital medical condition that…