Publications & Testimony

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…

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…

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…

DPI’s new series focus­es on aca­d­e­m­ic research and arti­cles in the field of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. This month’s arti­cle is ​“Sacred Victims: Fifty Years of Data on Victim Race and Sex as Predictors of Execution,” in The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, co-authored by Professors Scott Phillips (Department of Sociology & Criminology), Justin Marceau, Sam Kamin, and a J.D. pro­gram alum­na, Nicole King, from the Sturm College of Law at the University of…

The Aprajita Woman and Child (West Bengal Criminal Laws Amendment) Bill, which out­lines the death penal­ty for rape result­ing in the victim’s death or ​“veg­e­ta­tive state,” was adopt­ed by the West Bengal gov­ern­ment in east­ern India on September 3, 2024. Under inter­na­tion­al law, it is unlaw­ful to pre­scribe the death penal­ty for a crime not meet­ing the ​“most seri­ous” crime (e.g., inten­tion­al murder)…

In an August 31, 2024, edi­to­r­i­al from The New York Times, the newspaper’s edi­to­r­i­al board writes that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment is ​“immoral, uncon­sti­tu­tion­al and use­less as a deter­rent to crime,” and asserts that President Joseph Biden should fol­low through with his cam­paign pledge to end the fed­er­al death penal­ty. The Times believes ​“it would be an appro­pri­ate and humane finale to his pres­i­den­cy for Mr. Biden to ful­fill that pledge and try to elim­i­nate the death penal­ty for federal…

In a new edi­to­r­i­al, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette argues that the death penal­ty is ​“nev­er the jus­tice that is called for” and achieves ​“noth­ing of val­ue except the sat­is­fac­tion of vengeance.” The Post-Gazette describes the death of 6‑week-old Leon Katz in June as an ​“almost unfath­omable” crime and a ​“vio­la­tion of pri­mor­dial inno­cence” — but argues that Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr.’s deci­sion to seek the death penal­ty against Nicole Virzi, Leon’s alleged…