Publications & Testimony

On September 14^th, 2023, the American Bar Association’s Death Penalty Representation Project held its annu­al Volunteer Recognition & Awards Program, hon­or­ing Venable LLP for its pro bono rep­re­sen­ta­tion of death row pris­on­ers, and cap­i­tal defense attor­ney and Florida State University College of Law pro­fes­sor Mark E. Olive, for his life­time com­mit­ment to pro­vid­ing those on death row with qual­i­ty rep­re­sen­ta­tion. Director of the ABA’s Death Penalty Representation…

According to a September 14, 2023, arti­cle from The Intercept, four med­ical sup­ply man­u­fac­tur­ers are refus­ing to sell their equip­ment for use in lethal injec­tion exe­cu­tions. This lim­i­ta­tion may fur­ther ham­per the abil­i­ty of states to car­ry out exe­cu­tions, as a mul­ti­tude of phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies have already placed restric­tions on sell­ing their drugs to depart­ments of cor­rec­tion. Joining these com­pa­nies are Baxter International Inc., B. Braun Medical…

Homononsapiens, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://​cre​ativecom​mons​.org/​l​i​c​e​n​s​e​s​/​b​y​— s​a/​4.0>, via Wikimedia…

Recent exonerees sen­tenced by non-unan­i­­­mous juries (clock­wise from top left): Ralph Wright (FL), Clemente Aguirre-Jarquin (FL), Anthony Ray Hinton (AL), Clifford Williams (FL), Isaiah McCoy…

On September 6, 2023, a bipar­ti­san group of Ohio state rep­re­sen­ta­tives rein­tro­duced a bill that would abol­ish the death penal­ty and replace the pun­ish­ment with life in prison with­out parole. Legislators in Ohio have debat­ed the use of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment for near­ly a decade, but this renewed effort comes after state sen­a­tors intro­duced Senate Bill 101 ear­li­er in the year, which would also abol­ish the use of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Among the pri­ma­ry spon­sors of these…

Robert Roberson with daugh­ter Nikki. Courtesy of the…

On September 5, 2023, Jesse Johnson (pic­tured) was released from Marion County Jail in Oregon when pros­e­cu­tors for­mal­ly declined to retry him for the 1998 mur­der of Harriet Thompson. Mr. Johnson was con­vict­ed of Ms. Thompson’s mur­der in 2004 and sen­tenced to death. In ask­ing the Marion County Circuit Court to dis­miss the case against Mr. Johnson, the coun­ty District Attorney’s office stat­ed that​“based upon the amount of time that has passed and the unavailability of…

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On August 4, a South Korean nation­al con­vict­ed of drug-traf­­fick­­ing was exe­cut­ed in China, accord­ing to South Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who added dur­ing a press con­fer­ence that this exe­cu­tion was​“unre­lat­ed to the cur­rent bilat­er­al rela­tions” between the two nations. This was the first time a South Korean nation­al was exe­cut­ed in China for drug-traf­­fick­­ing since 2014, when four…

Attorneys for Christa Pike, the only woman on Tennessee’s death row, filed a motion on August 30 to re-open her appeals based on a recent deci­sion from the Tennessee Supreme Court. In 2022, the Court ruled in State v. Booker that manda­to­ry life sen­tences in homi­cide cas­es are uncon­sti­tu­tion­al when imposed on juve­niles, draw­ing on U.S. Supreme Court prece­dent that held that juve­niles are less mature, more vul­ner­a­ble to peer pres­sure, and gen­er­al­ly less culpable…