Publications & Testimony

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 innocence. In 1993, the Supreme Court generated widespread outrage when it ruled in Herrera v. Collins that new evidence of actual innocence does not entitle a death-sentenced prisoner to…

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…

“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 one…

The American Bar Association’s Criminal Justice Section has announced its forthcoming annual report, The State of Criminal Justice 2024, examining the state of the American criminal legal system. The annual publication includes a chapter devoted to significant developments in capital punishment, authored by Ronald J. Tabak, co-chair of the Death Penalty Committee of the ABA’s Section of Civil Rights and Social Justice and a longtime member of the Steering Committee of the ABA’s Death Penalty…

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…

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 17, 2024.

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.

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 failed…

Best-selling author of The Innocent Man and former criminal defense lawyer John Grisham “never, not once” believed that any of the hundreds of clients he represented were wrongfully convicted. In a September 5, 2024, op-ed, Mr. Grisham writes that he just assumed the criminal justice system always got it right. Now, writing for the second time about Robert Roberson’s case, Mr. Grisham acknowledges that was “a wrong assumption.” He argues that “Robert Roberson is innocent because the evidence…

On August 28, 2024, a St. Louis County Circuit Court judge held an evidentiary hearing for Marcellus Williams (pictured), who has long maintained his innocence in the 1998 murder of Felicia Gayle. At this hearing, the office of St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney (PA) Wesley Bell conceded that the prior administration, under Prosecuting Attorney Bob McCullogh, committed constitutional errors contributing to Mr. Williams’ unreliable conviction and death sentence. These errors include the…