Publications & Testimony

Alabama offi­cials have agreed not to make a sec­ond attempt to exe­cute Alan Miller by lethal injec­tion after the state had to call off his September 22, 2022 exe­cu­tion because of the fail­ure to estab­lish an IV line. If the state seeks to exe­cute Miller in the future, it will use nitro­gen hypox­ia, a method that has nev­er been used for an exe­cu­tion. In the months since Miller’s exe­cu­tion attempt, Alabama also attempt­ed and failed to exe­cute Kenneth Smith. In…

Texas is plan­ning to exe­cute a seri­ous­ly men­tal­ly ill pris­on­er who has gouged out both of his eyes because of his para­noid schiz­o­phre­nia. On November 7, 2022, the District Court of Grayson County, Texas set an April 5, 2023 exe­cu­tion date for Andre Thomas (pic­tured, left when arrest­ed; cen­ter, after goug­ing out his right eye pri­or to tri­al; right, after goug­ing out and eat­ing his left eye while on death row). Thomas has been described by his attor­neys as ​“one of the most…

Despite a court-appoint­ed spe­cial prosecutor’s request to vacate his death sen­tence, Missouri exe­cut­ed death-row pris­on­er Kevin Johnson (pic­tured, with daugh­ter Khorry Ramey, left, and new­born grand­son) on November 29, 2022. The exe­cu­tion moved for­ward after the Missouri Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court denied stays of exe­cu­tion fol­low­ing oral argu­ment in the Missouri high court less than 36 hours before the sched­uled exe­cu­tion. Missouri Governor Mike…

Alabama Governor Kay Ivey (pic­tured) has halt­ed exe­cu­tions and ordered a ​“top-to-bot­tom review” of the state’s exe­cu­tion pro­ce­dures, five days after fail­ures by cor­rec­tions per­son­nel to estab­lish an intra­venous exe­cu­tion line caused Alabama to call off the November 17, 2022 exe­cu­tion of Kenneth…

Corrections per­son­nel who par­tic­i­pate in exe­cut­ing pris­on­ers expe­ri­ence emo­tion­al trau­ma so pro­found that it changes their views about cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, a National Public Radio (NPR) inves­ti­ga­tion has…

Oklahoma has pushed back the clemen­cy hear­ings of two men on death row, John Hanson and Richard Glossip (pic­tured). Glossip’s exe­cu­tion date was also moved back, and Hanson’s exe­cu­tion date will like­ly have to be changed. Both men were sched­uled to have clemen­cy hear­ings on Nov. 9, 2022, and to be exe­cut­ed before the end of the year, as part of Oklahoma’s planned spree of 25 exe­cu­tions sched­uled between August 2022 and December 2024. The state’s deci­sion to exe­cute so many peo­ple in a short…

Kenneth Eugene Smith​’s November 17 exe­cu­tion was halt­ed after Alabama offi­cials spent an hour try­ing to set intra­venous lines for the lethal injec­tion drugs. Earlier that evening, Smith’s exe­cu­tion had been stayed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, but the U.S. Supreme Court vacat­ed the stay over the dis­sent of three jus­tices. The set­ting of IV lines has been an issue in all 3 exe­cu­tions attempt­ed by Alabama this year, includ­ing the…

The Tennessee Attorney General’s Office attempt­ed to pre­serve a tri­al court rul­ing deny­ing Byron Black​’s intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty claim, argu­ing before the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) on November 8. Black’s attor­neys argue that a new law enti­tles him to relief from his death sen­tence because of his intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty, and the Davidson County District Attorney’s Office agrees. However, a tri­al judge denied Black’s claim because it had been…

In its third exe­cu­tion of 2022, Arizona exe­cut­ed Murray Hooper for a 1980 crime that was nev­er ana­lyzed using mod­ern foren­sic meth­ods. In the days pre­ced­ing his exe­cu­tion, his attor­neys con­tin­ued to request DNA test­ing and pur­sued new claims of pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct based on evi­dence not revealed until Hooper’s clemen­cy hear­ing. All chal­lenges to his con­vic­tion and death sentence…