Publications & Testimony

Items: 31 — 40


Sep 24, 2024

Missouri Supreme Court and Governor Reject Innocence Claims and Refuse to Pause Execution for Marcellus Williams

On September 23, 2024, the Missouri Supreme Court heard oral argu­ments on the joint motion by Marcellus Williams’ legal team and St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney (PA) Wesley Bell to over­turn a low­er court’s deci­sion reject­ing Mr. Williams’ appeal. Later the same day, the state supreme court unan­i­mous­ly denied the motion, stat­ing that there was no cred­i­ble evi­dence of actu­al inno­cence or any show­ing of a con­sti­tu­tion­al error under­min­ing con­fi­dence in the orig­i­nal judg­ment.” Also the same…

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Sep 20, 2024

Dismissing Codefendant’s Last-Minute Admission that Khalil Allah Was Not Present at the Crime Scene, South Carolina Supreme Court Clears Way for Today’s Execution

On September 19, 2024, attor­neys for Khalil Allah, for­mer­ly known as Freddie Eugene Owens, filed an emer­gency motion for a stay of exe­cu­tion after receiv­ing a signed affi­davit from his code­fen­dant in the 1997 shoot­ing death of Irene Graves that Mr. Allah was not present” dur­ing the crime. Just two days ahead of Mr. Allah’s sched­uled exe­cu­tion, Steven Golden, who was also charged in Ms. Graves’ death, recant­ed his tri­al tes­ti­mo­ny and said that Mr. Allah is not the per­son who shot Irene…

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Sep 19, 2024

Hispanic Heritage Month: Leonel Herrera and the Agony of Doubt”

In hon­or of Hispanic Heritage Month (Sept. 15-Oct. 15), DPI is post­ing a week­ly fea­ture on Hispanic or Latino/​a peo­ple who have had a sig­nif­i­cant impact on the death penal­ty in the U.S. The first post in this series tells the sto­ry of Leonel Herrera, the defen­dant at the cen­ter of a key Supreme Court case on…

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Sep 18, 2024

Broad Coalition Supports Robert Roberson’s Clemency Petition

On September 17, 2024, attor­neys for Texas death row pris­on­er Robert Roberson filed a clemen­cy peti­tion accom­pa­nied by let­ters from hun­dreds of sup­port­ers, includ­ing emi­nent sci­en­tists and med­ical pro­fes­sion­als, a bipar­ti­san group of Texas leg­is­la­tors, and for­mer lead Detective Brian Wharton, urg­ing the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and Governor Greg Abbott to reduce Mr. Roberson’s sen­tence. Mr. Roberson is cur­rent­ly sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed on October 17, 2024. He was con­vict­ed and…

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Sep 17, 2024

Article of Interest: Former U.S. Judge Andy Lester Calls on Oklahoma to Implement Reforms to Badly Broken” Capital Punishment System Before Continuing Executions

From start to fin­ish, it is so bad­ly bro­ken that we can­not know whether some­one who has been con­demned to death is actu­al­ly deserv­ing of the ulti­mate penal­ty,” wrote for­mer U.S. Magistrate Judge Andy Lester in a September 12, 2024 op-ed for The Oklahoman. Before car­ry­ing out any new exe­cu­tions, Mr. Lester calls on the state to imple­ment new reforms to its bro­ken” cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem. Although the Oklahoma Death Penalty Review Commission pro­vid­ed 45 spe­cif­ic rec­om­men­da­tions and…

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Sep 13, 2024

Ignoring Credible Innocence Claims, St. Louis County Circuit Court Denies Prosecutor’s Motion to Vacate Marcellus Williams’ Conviction and Death Sentence

On September 12, 2024, the Missouri Circuit Court for St. Louis County denied Prosecuting Attorney (PA) Wesley Bell’s motion to vacate Marcellus Williams’ con­vic­tion and death sen­tence for the 1998 mur­der of Felicia Gayle. Judge Bruce F. Hilton denied PA Bell’s motion, writ­ing that there is no basis for a court to find that [Mr.] Williams is inno­cent, and no court has made such a find­ing.” Judge Hilton added that the court was not pre­sent­ed with evi­dence show­ing that the previous…

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Sep 12, 2024

Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Dismisses New Evidence of Innocence and Denies Robert Roberson Habeas Relief

On September 11, 2024, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) dis­missed Robert Roberson’s request for habeas relief with­out review­ing the mer­its of any of his five claims, cit­ing a fail­ure to meet pro­ce­dur­al require­ments, despite the inclu­sion of new, pre­vi­ous­ly unavail­able med­ical and sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence in the appli­ca­tion. The TCCA also denied Mr. Roberson’s motion for a stay of exe­cu­tion, which remains sched­uled for October 172024.

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Sep 11, 2024

See What Utah Spent on Its First Execution in 14 Years

Taberon Honie was an American Indian from the Hopi-Tewa com­mu­ni­ty whose life was marked by pover­ty, sub­stance abuse, and gen­er­a­tional trau­ma. His par­ents were forced to attend Indian board­ing schools, which were noto­ri­ous­ly abu­sive and designed to strip Indian chil­dren of their cul­tur­al her­itage. They lat­er suf­fered from alco­holism and neglect­ed Mr. Honie and his sib­lings. Mr. Honie first tried alco­hol at age 5 and pro­gressed to hero­in and meth by the time he was a teenager.

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Sep 10, 2024

Idaho Court Dismisses Longest-Serving Death Row Prisoner’s Post-Conviction Claim Against a Second Execution Attempt

On September 5, 2024, Idaho’s Fourth Judicial District Court dis­missed death-sen­tenced pris­on­er Thomas Creech’s post-con­vic­tion claim, which sought to pre­vent a sec­ond exe­cu­tion attempt on the grounds that it would vio­late the Fifth Amendment’s dou­ble jeop­ardy clause, Eighth Amendment’s pro­hi­bi­tion against cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment, and equiv­a­lent state con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­vi­sions. The state’s first attempt to exe­cute Mr. Creech on February 28, 2024 was halt­ed because cor­rec­tion­al staff…

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