Publications & Testimony

Texas Judge Paul C. Murphy recent­ly ordered pros­e­cu­tors to hand over key evi­dence from a 1989 mur­der case to the Innocence Project and the Texas Observer for DNA test­ing. In 2007, the Innocence Project and the Observer filed suit to obtain a one-inch strand of hair that alleged­ly impli­cat­ed Claude Howard Jones (pic­tured) in the killing of a liquor store own­er in San Jacinto County. Other than vague eye­wit­ness accounts and…

On June 14, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Albert Holland, who lost his right to file a fed­er­al appeal of his death sen­tence when his lawyer missed the 1‑year dead­line estab­lished under the Anti-ter­ror­ism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA). The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit ruled that Holland’s attor­ney’s con­duct in miss­ing the dead­line was not egre­gious enough to war­rant set­ting aside the imposed…

The International Harm Reduction Association (IHRA) recent­ly pub­lished a report on the use of the death penal­ty for drug crimes around the world. The report dis­tin­guish­es between coun­tries that have leg­is­la­tion allow­ing a death sen­tence for drug offens­es and those that actu­al­ly apply it in prac­tice. According to the report, 32 juris­dic­tions retain the death penal­ty for drug offens­es (out of the 58 coun­tries that have the death penal­ty for any offense), at least 12 of which…

On June 4, Ohio Governor Ted Strickland grant­ed clemen­cy to Richard Nields, reduc­ing his death sen­tence to life with­out parole. Nields was sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed lat­er in June for the 1997 mur­der of his girl­friend in sub­ur­ban Cincinnati. In May, the Ohio Parole Board rec­om­mend­ed Nields for clemen­cy because of prob­lems with med­ical tes­ti­mo­ny at Nields’s tri­al. Dr. Paul Shrode, who was still in train­ing at the time of the tri­al, testified…

On Monday, June 7, the Pennsylvania State Government Management and Cost Study Commission will hear from experts on pro­pos­als to cut the costs of var­i­ous gov­ern­ment pro­grams. The Commission, estab­lished in 2009, is com­prised of pri­vate and pub­lic sec­tor cost-mind­ed lead­ers in Pennsylvania and has been charged with study­ing the man­age­ment of gov­ern­ment oper­a­tions and mak­ing rec­om­men­da­tions for cost-cut­ting mea­sures. Among the experts who will tes­ti­fy at the hear­ing is Richard…

David Powell (pic­tured left), who was sen­tenced to death in 1978 for the shoot­ing of Austin police offi­cer Ralph Ablanedo (pic­tured below), faces exe­cu­tion in Texas on June 15. During his 30 years on death row, Powell has shown sin­cere remorse and regret for his actions. In 2009, Powell wrote to Officer Ablanedo’s fam­i­ly: ​“I am infi­nite­ly sor­ry that I killed Ralph Ablanedo. I shot Officer Ablanedo and I take responsibility…