Publications & Testimony

Conditions for the the 50 inmates on Mississippi​’s death row are per­haps typ­i­cal of death rows around the coun­try, but are nev­er­the­less debil­i­tat­ing and cru­el. Most inmates spend an aver­age of 12 – 15 years on death row while they pro­ceed through the appeals process, though some have been there longer than 30 years. Death row inmates usu­al­ly spend 23 hours a day in their cells. Dr. Stuart Grassian, a Harvard psy­chi­a­trist who has long stud­ied death row…

Marcus Druery (pic­tured) is fac­ing exe­cu­tion in Texas on August 1 even though he has shown clear signs of men­tal incom­pe­tence. The Texas Defender Service recent­ly filed a motion to delay his exe­cu­tion, cit­ing the find­ings of a psy­chol­o­gist who exam­ined Druery ear­li­er this year:​“His delu­sion­al ideas so per­vade his under­stand­ing of his case that he no longer under­stands that it was him who com­mit­ted the crime, and that he’s the one…

A Georgia judge has removed Kelvin Johnson’s pub­lic defend­ers from rep­re­sent­ing him in a death penal­ty case because his lawyers request­ed more time to pre­pare for tri­al. Johnson was being rep­re­sent­ed by attor­neys from the Georgia Capital Defender Office, who said a delay was need­ed because an over­whelm­ing case­load and lack of fund­ing pre­clud­ed them from going for­ward at this time. The Georgia Capital Defender pro­gram, which was start­ed to provide…

Yokamon Hearn (pic­tured) is fac­ing exe­cu­tion in Texas on July 18 despite clear evi­dence of brain dam­age since his ear­ly child­hood. Hearn’s tri­al attor­neys failed to con­duct an ade­quate inves­ti­ga­tion into Hearn’s ear­ly his­to­ry, which would have uncov­ered mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence that he was neglect­ed by his par­ents and had a his­to­ry of men­tal health prob­lems. His moth­er’s alco­holism was so severe that she drank to the point of…

A new book by Clive Stafford Smith, a British lawyer who has defend­ed death row inmates in the U.S., offers an in-depth view of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in America. In Injustice: Life and Death in the Courtrooms of America, Stafford Smith exam­ines the case of Kris Maharaj, a British cit­i­zen who was sen­tenced to death in Florida for a dou­ble mur­der, to expose prob­lems in the jus­tice sys­tem. The book reveals dis­turb­ing details of Maharaj’s…

The United Kingdom has intro­duced restic­tions on the expor­ta­tion of propo­fol after offi­cials in Missouri announced they would begin using the anes­thet­ic in exe­cu­tions. Exports of sodi­um thiopen­tal, anoth­er anes­thet­ic pre­vi­ous­ly used in exe­cu­tions, were restrict­ed after sev­er­al states obtained that drug from DreamPharma, a drug com­pa­ny run out of the back of a dri­ving school in London. Vince Cable, the U.K. Business…

On July 10, Ohio Governor John Kasich (pic­tured) grant­ed clemen­cy to death row inmate John Eley, who was sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed on July 26. Eley’s sen­tence was reduced to life in prison with­out parole. The gov­er­nor said he based his deci­sion on evi­dence that Eley act­ed under the direc­tion of anoth­er per­son, and that his men­tal capac­i­ty was lim­it­ed, say­ing,​“Without those fac­tors it is doubtful that…

A recent New York Times edi­to­r­i­al encour­aged the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles to reduce the sen­tence of death row inmate Warren Hill to life. Hill is fac­ing exe­cu­tion on July 18. The edi­to­r­i­al not­ed that Mr. Hill’s intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ties, includ­ing an IQ of 70, led the tri­al judge to find him men­tal­ly retard­ed. Georgia’s Supreme Court, how­ev­er, over­turned the judge’s rul­ing because men­tal retar­da­tion had not…

A recent arti­cle in the Michigan State Law Review exam­ined the prob­lem of racial bias in cap­i­tal cas­es, par­tic­u­lar­ly with respect to jurors’ deci­sion mak­ing. Authors Mona Lynch and Craig Haney (pic­tured), both pro­fes­sors at the University of California, sum­ma­rize past sta­tis­ti­cal stud­ies on race and the death penal­ty and present new exper­i­men­tal research on juror deci­­sion-mak­ing in a sim­u­lat­ed cap­i­tal tri­al. Research par­tic­i­pants were shown one of…

Warren Hill (pic­tured) is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed on July 18 in Georgia despite being pre­vi­ous­ly found intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled. The U.S. Supreme Court in Atkins v. Virgnia (2002) banned the exe­cu­tion of indi­vid­u­als with intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ties (men­tal retar­da­tion), but allowed each state to set guide­lines for deter­min­ing whether an inmate has such a con­di­tion. In Georgia, cap­i­tal defen­dants are required to prove…