Publications & Testimony

Items: 41 — 50


Oct 07, 2024

Delaware Officially Removes Death Penalty from State Statutes Eight Years After State Supreme Court Finds It Unconstitutional

On September 26, 2024, Governor John Carney (D) signed House Bill 70, which offi­cial­ly repeals the death penal­ty from the state’s law. Although Delaware’s Supreme Court found its death penal­ty statute to be uncon­sti­tu­tion­al in 2016, inval­i­dat­ing it for future use and effec­tive­ly abol­ish­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, the pas­sage of HB 70 amends Title 11 of the state’s code to remove the death penal­ty and replace it with life with­out parole as the most severe pun­ish­ment for first-degree mur­der for…

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Oct 04, 2024

A Chance at Life, Withdrawn: When Politics Interferes with Plea Deals

American pros­e­cu­tors have immense pow­er and rel­a­tive­ly unchecked dis­cre­tion in cap­i­tal cas­es. But in sev­er­al recent cas­es, death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers reached agree­ments with pros­e­cu­tors that would have saved them from exe­cu­tion, only to learn that anoth­er offi­cial had inter­fered to block the agree­ment. Critics have argued that these deci­sions sow pub­lic dis­trust in the legal process and raise con­cerns that gov­ern­ment offi­cials may be exploit­ing death penal­ty cas­es for political…

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Oct 02, 2024

Worldwide Wednesday International Roundup: Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, United States, and Vietnam

On September 13, 2024, 37 peo­ple, includ­ing three Americans, who were charged with ter­ror­ism, mur­der, crim­i­nal asso­ci­a­tion and ille­gal pos­ses­sion of weapons, among oth­er charges” for their par­tic­i­pa­tion in an attempt­ed coup in May were con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death by a mil­i­tary court. Richard Bondo, lawyer for the three Americans, filed an appeal on Tuesday, September 17, 2024. Mr. Bondo argues that since the DRC is a mem­ber of the Treaty of Rome, the rein­state­ment of the death penalty…

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Oct 01, 2024

Citing Misconduct, Japanese Court Formally Exonerates Iwao Hakamada of 1966 Murder After 46 Years on Death Row

On September 26, 2024, a Japanese court for­mal­ly acquit­ted 88-year-old Iwao Hakamada (pic­tured), who was wrong­ful­ly sen­tenced to death in 1968 for the mur­der of his for­mer boss and fam­i­ly in Shizuoka, Japan. After 46 years on death row, and anoth­er decade of lit­i­ga­tion, Judge Kunii Tsuneishi of the Shizuoka District Court ruled that blood-stained cloth­ing used to con­vict Mr. Hakamada was fab­ri­cat­ed long after the mur­ders. The court can­not accept the fact that the blood stain would remain…

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Sep 30, 2024

Rulings for Two Death-Sentenced Prisoners Recognize Devastating Harm Caused by Solitary Confinement

Scientists and oth­er experts are unan­i­mous in their con­clu­sion that indef­i­nite or pro­longed soli­tary con­fine­ment caus­es seri­ous harm, and the United Nations says it amounts to tor­ture — yet most death-sen­tenced peo­ple in America are con­fined to these extreme con­di­tions of iso­la­tion and depri­va­tion for years. As of 2020, a dozen states rou­tine­ly kept death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers in sin­gle cells for at least twen­ty-two hours a day with lit­tle-to-no human con­tact. Two recent devel­op­ments in capital…

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Sep 27, 2024

United States Reaches 1600 Executions, Demonstrating Disconnect Between Elected Officials and Declining Public Support

The United States has reached a mile­stone in the admin­is­tra­tion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment this week. All four sched­uled exe­cu­tions in Texas, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Alabama took place, mark­ing the 1600th exe­cu­tion in the mod­ern era of the death penal­ty in the U.S., despite pub­lic opin­ion polls show­ing grow­ing con­cerns about the fair­ness and accu­ra­cy of the death penal­ty and declin­ing sup­port for its…

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Sep 26, 2024

Oklahoma, Alabama Executions Raise Concerns About Clemency Process and Execution Methods

Executions in Oklahoma and Alabama, sched­uled just hours apart on September 26, high­light issues of pro­por­tion­al sen­tenc­ing and exper­i­men­tal meth­ods of exe­cu­tion. Emmanuel Littlejohn, who was exe­cut­ed at 10:17am CT, had received a rec­om­men­da­tion of clemen­cy from Oklahoma’s Pardon and Parole Board because of con­flict­ing evi­dence about whether he or a co-defen­dant actu­al­ly killed the vic­tim. Alan Miller, sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed in the evening of September 26, sur­vived a botched lethal…

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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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