Publications & Testimony

An Ohio Supreme Court committee appointed to study the death penalty recently made recommendations on how the state’s capital punishment system can lessen the impact of racial bias. The committee recommended limiting the death penalty to fewer cases, focusing on those involving multiple victims, those involving victims under the age of 13, killings of police officers, and crimes committed to eliminate witnesses. The proposal attempts to remove the influence of race in capital cases by…

On June 26, lawyers in Florida filed a lawsuit challenging the 2013 Timely Justice Act, a law signed by Gov. Rick Scott earlier in June. The Act could accelerate executions by requiring the governor to sign a death warrant within 30 days of a Supreme Court review, provided the governor determines that the clemency process is complete. An execution must follow within 180 days. The lawsuit was filed by the Capital Collateral Regional Counsel, a state agency that represents death row inmates…

On June 25 (Tuesday), the Oklahoma Supreme Court suspended former Oklahoma County prosecutor Robert Bradley Miller for his misconduct in murder trials that eventually led to the release of two death row inmates. In 2006, a federal judge dismissed the murder convictions of Paris Powell and Yancy Douglas after finding that a deal made between the prosecutor and the key witness in the case was never disclosed to the defense attorneys. In Tuesday’s ruling, the Oklahoma Supreme Court found that…

Kimberly McCarthy (pictured), who is facing execution on June 26, is scheduled to become the 500^th person executed in Texas since 1976. McCarthy’s attorney, Maurie Levin, recently filed a new motion to stay the execution because racial discrimination and inadequate legal representation played significant roles in McCarthy’s case. According to the filing, only four non-white potential jurors made it to the final selection from an initial pool of 64 prospective jurors. Three of the four potential…

The Oregon Supreme Court ruled that Governor John Kitzhaber may delay the executions of the state’s death row inmates during his term of office. In 2011, Kitzhaber instituted a moratorium on all executions in the state, saying, “I refuse to be a part of this compromised and inequitable system any longer; and I will not allow further executions while I am Governor.” That decision was challenged by death row inmate Gary Haugen, who had waived his appeals in order to speed up his execution. Haugen…

Steve Monks, a former Durham County, North Carolina, GOP Chair, recently called for an end to the death penalty in the state. Earlier in June, legislators voted to repeal the Racial Justice Act, which had allowed death row inmates to challenge their sentences using statistical evidence of racial bias. Monks wrote in an op-ed in Plain Talk Politics that the most recent attempts to reform capital punishment in the state are strong indications that “the system will never work properly.” Monk…

On June 12 – 15, political leaders and criminal justice experts from five continents gathered in Madrid, Spain, for the Fifth World Congress Against the Death Penalty. The World Congress was co-sponsored by Spain, France, Norway, and Switzerland, and included delegates from over 90 countries. The delegation from the United States included Jerry Givens, a former correctional officer in Virginia, who assisted with the execution of 62 inmates. Givens became an opponent of the death penalty after his…

On June 12, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) held that former death row inmate Jerry Hartfield has been held in prison for 33 years despite having no valid conviction. The court concluded: “The status of the judgment of conviction is that Petitioner is under no conviction or sentence.” Hartfield, an illiterate man with an IQ of 51, had his capital conviction overturned by the same court in 1980 because his trial jury was improperly selected. The court ordered a new trial for Hartfield…

Paula Cooper, who was 15 years old at the time of her crime, and the youngest person ever sentenced to death in Indiana, will be released from prison on June 17, twenty-seven years after her conviction for the murder of 78-year-old Ruth Pelke. Her case received international attention, sparking a campaign that led to the commutation of her death sentence to 60 years in prison. An appeal to the Indiana Supreme Court received over 2 million signatures from around the world. Pope John Paul II…