Publications & Testimony

Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond has appoint­ed a spe­cial coun­sel to con­duct a​‘thor­ough review’ of the case of death-row pris­on­er Richard Glossip, who has faced nine exe­cu­tion dates despite strong evi­dence that he is inno­cent of the 1997 alleged mur­der-for-hire of an Oklahoma City motel own­er. In a news release issued January 26, 2023, two days after the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals resched­uled Glossip’s…

In North Carolina and Nevada, fam­i­ly mem­bers of mur­der vic­tims are speak­ing out against the death penal­ty, encour­ag­ing offi­cials in both states to commute…

The Alabama Supreme Court announced a change to its rules of appel­late pro­ce­dure on January 12, 2023, elim­i­nat­ing auto­mat­ic plain error review for tri­al errors in death penal­ty cas­es. This new rule removes a sig­nif­i­cant safe­guard for cap­i­tal defen­dants’ rights, which had been in place since Alabama rein­stat­ed the death penal­ty in 1976. Without the review, cap­i­tal defen­dants who were erro­neous­ly con­vict­ed or sen­tenced could spend many more years on death row before…

The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals (OCCA) has reset the state’s exe­cu­tion sched­ule, slow­ing down the pace at which the 25-per­­son exe­cu­tion spree it autho­rized in July 2022…

Executions in Arizona are effec­tive­ly on hold after Governor Katie Hobbs (pic­tured) ordered a review of the state’s exe­cu­tion process fol­low­ing three botched exe­cu­tions in 2022 and Attorney General Kris Mayes filed a motion to with­draw the state’s only pend­ing request for a death war­rant. The two state offi­cials, elect­ed in the November midterm elec­tions against oppo­nents who false­ly claimed the 2020 Presidential election…

A Kansas cap­i­tal defen­dant is chal­leng­ing the prosecution’s deci­sion to pur­sue the death penal­ty in his case, invok­ing a height­ened stan­dard of review the Kansas con­sti­tu­tion applies to infringe­ments of fundamental…

A Russian nation­al on the U.S. fed­er­al death row has filed a civ­il rights law­suit chal­leng­ing the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the fed­er­al government’s use of auto­mat­ic and pro­longed soli­tary con­fine­ment to house individuals…

Alabama death-row pris­on­er Kenneth Smith spent four hours on November 17, 2022 strapped to an exe­cu­tion gur­ney while state pros­e­cu­tors attempt­ed to lift a stay of exe­cu­tion issued by a fed­er­al appeals court and his exe­cu­tion team repeat­ed­ly failed in attempts to set the intra­venous exe­cu­tion line intend­ed to kill him. He was left strapped to the gur­ney after prison offi­cials called off the botched exe­cu­tion, unaware that he was not to…

Tennessee will not resume exe­cu­tions until it fix­es sys­temic prob­lems with the admin­is­tra­tion of its exe­cu­tion pro­to­col, Governor Bill Lee has announced.​“It’s a very impor­tant issue that has to be done cor­rect­ly,” Lee told reporters on January 5, 2023.​“And we will take the time to fix the pro­to­col and to make cer­tain that we don’t move for­ward until everything’s…

The U.S. Supreme Court has reversed the denial of relief to a Texas death-row pris­on­er whose request for new tri­al is sup­port­ed by local pros­e­cu­tors. In a two-sen­­tence deci­sion, the Court grant­ed cer­tio­rari to Areli Escobar, vacat­ed the judg­ment of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA), and sent the case back for recon­sid­er­a­tion. The Court’s sum­ma­ry rever­sal relied on Travis County pros­e­cu­tors’ admission that…