Publications & Testimony

On June 18, the Ohio Supreme Court stayed the exe­cu­tion of Abdul Awkal (pic­tured) indef­i­nite­ly fol­low­ing a coun­ty court’s rul­ing that he was men­tal­ly incom­pe­tent to face exe­cu­tion. Awkal was orig­i­nal­ly sched­uled for exe­cu­tion on June 6, but short­ly before the exe­cu­tion Governor John Kasich grant­ed a two-week reprieve to allow time for a men­tal com­pe­ten­cy hear­ing. Judge Stuart Friedman presided over that hearing and…

The lat­est edi­tion of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund’s Death Row USA shows a decrease of 19 inmates between January 1 and April 1, 2012. Over the last decade, the total pop­u­la­tion of state and fed­er­al death rows has decreased sig­nif­i­cant­ly, from 3,682 inmates in 2000 to 3,170 inmates as of April 2012. California con­tin­ues to have the largest death row pop­u­la­tion (724), fol­lowed by Florida (407), Texas (308), Pennsylvania (204), and Alabama (200). Neither…

Adam…

On June 13, the North Carolina House of Representatives approved a bill to essen­tial­ly over­turn the state’s Racial Justice Act (RJA), a ground­break­ing law that allowed a find­ing of racial bias in sen­tenc­ing or jury selec­tion based on sophisticated statistical…

The edi­tors of the Birmingham News in Alabama recenl­ty called upon a tri­al court to over­rule a jury’s 10 – 2 rec­om­men­da­tion for death in the case of Esaw Jackson because of his men­tal dis­abil­i­ties. While not­ing that in many states Jackson would not even be eli­gi­ble for the death penal­ty fol­low­ing a non-unan­i­­mous vote, the News added that an IQ test, con­duct­ed by a state expert on Jackson, showed an IQ of 56, well below…

The pros­e­cu­tor who helped secure the death sen­tence of John Eley (pic­tured) and one of the pre­sid­ing judges who sen­tenced him to death recent­ly asked the Ohio Parole Board to rec­om­mend clemen­cy instead. Former Mahoning County pros­e­cu­tor Gary Van Brocklin told the state parole board that Eley should be spared from exe­cu­tion because the type of crime he com­mit­ted is no longer usu­al­ly prosecuted as…

Two researchers at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, Professors Justin Wolfers (pic­tured) and Betsey Stevenson, recent­ly explained why decades of stud­ies have failed to show a reli­able deter­rent effect from the death penal­ty. The authors cit­ed a 2012 report from the National Academy of Sciences, con­clud­ing that the deter­rence stud­ies of the past 30 years​“should not influ­ence pol­i­cy judg­ments about capital…

On June 8, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that wit­ness­es should have full view­ing-access to exe­cu­tions car­ried out in Idaho, sid­ing with the Associated Press and oth­er media out­lets. Seventeen news orga­ni­za­tions had argued that the state’s pro­to­col was uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly restric­tive because it pre­vent­ed wit­ness­es, includ­ing reporters act­ing as rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the pub­lic, from view­ing exe­cu­tions until after…

On June 1, for­mer Tennessee death row inmate Erskine Johnson (pic­tured; now known as Ndume Olatushani) was freed after serv­ing near­ly 27 years in prison, 19 of which were spent on death row. Johnson, who main­tained his inno­cence through­out the process, was sen­tenced to death for the 1983 mur­der of a gro­cer in Memphis. In 2004, he was resen­tenced to life in prison after the state Supreme Court found that pros­e­cu­tors did not disclose important…

A recent edi­to­r­i­al in the New York Times called for greater atten­tion to be paid by courts to inmates on death row with severe men­tal ill­ness:​“The death penal­ty sys­tem fails to take ade­quate account of severe men­tal ill­ness, whether at tri­al, at sen­tenc­ing or in post­con­vic­tion pro­ceed­ings,” the paper wrote. The edi­to­r­i­al praised Governor John Kasich of Ohio for grant­i­ng a two-week reprieve to Abdul Awkal on June 5 just pri­or to his…