Publications & Testimony

Three years after the reli­gious­ly-moti­vat­ed attack on Pittsburgh​’s Tree of Life syn­a­gogue, the sta­tus of the state and fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tions in the case remains unset­tled. As the three Jewish con­gre­ga­tions who wor­ship at the syn­a­gogue marked the anniver­sary of the October 27, 2018 attack that took the lives of eleven con­gre­gants, no tri­al date is in sight and the prospect of a cap­i­tal tri­al that many in the tight­ly-knit com­mu­ni­ty oppose con­tin­ues to delay…

The U.S. Supreme Court has pushed back argu­ments in three death-penal­ty cas­es so it can expe­dite con­sid­er­a­tion of two cas­es involv­ing Texas’ restric­tive abor­tion statute. To hear argu­ment in United States v. Texas and Whole Women’s Health v. Jackson on November 1, 2021, the court resched­uled argu­ment in Ramirez (John) v. Collier and Shinn v. Ramirez (David) and Jones. The Court will now hear argu­ment in…

The U.S. Supreme Court on October 18, 2021 denied review in the case of Texas death-row pris­on­er Melissa Elizabeth Lucio (pic­tured). Lucio was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death on charges that she mur­dered her two-year-old daugh­ter, Mariah. Lucio has long main­tained that Mariah died from an accidental…

A Bastrop, Texas tri­al court heard clos­ing argu­ments October 18, 2021 on whether Texas death-row pris­on­er Rodney Reed should be grant­ed a new tri­al in the April 1996 mur­der of Stacey Stites. The argu­ment con­clud­ed the adver­sar­i­al por­tion of an extra­or­di­nary evi­den­tiary hear­ing ordered by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) to review Reed’s claims that pros­e­cu­tors secured his con­vic­tions for rape and mur­der by sup­press­ing excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence and pre­sent­ing false…

Alabama has exe­cut­ed an intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled death-row pris­on­er who was sen­tenced to death by his tri­al judge despite a non-unan­i­mous sen­tenc­ing rec­om­men­da­tion by his jury. Willie B. Smith III was exe­cut­ed by three-drug lethal injec­tion on October 21, 2021 after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review his appeal of a low­er fed­er­al court rul­ing deny­ing his claim that the state’s choice to exe­cute him by lethal injec­tion vio­lat­ed his rights under the…

A St. Louis Circuit Court judge has denied St. Louis City Circuit Attorney Kimberly Gardner​’s (pic­tured) July 2021 request for spe­cial pros­e­cu­tors to han­dle three death-eli­gi­ble homi­cide cas­es in her juris­dic­tion. On October 15, 2021, Circuit Judge Elizabeth Hogan wrote that the con­flicts cit­ed by Gardner’s office in its request for a spe­cial pros­e­cu­tor were not ​“dis­qual­i­fy­ing” and there­fore that ​“the Court has no author­i­ty to appoint a special…

Alleging that Shelby County Assistant District Attorney General Stephen Jones may have been rep­re­sent­ing the pros­e­cu­tion in his case while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly serv­ing as a cap­i­tal case staff attor­ney assist­ing the county’s judges, Tennessee death-row pris­on­er Pervis Payne (pic­tured) has moved to dis­qual­i­fy the Shelby County District Attorney General’s office from fur­ther par­tic­i­pa­tion in his case. Payne is await­ing a scheduled…

An intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled Alabama death-row pris­on­er has appealed a fed­er­al dis­trict court rul­ing that clears the way for his exe­cu­tion on October 21,…

In a deci­sion with poten­tial to vacate a num­ber of Oklahoma exe­cu­tion dates, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit has held that a low­er fed­er­al court abused its dis­cre­tion in dis­miss­ing six death-row pris­on­ers from a law­suit chal­leng­ing the state’s execution…

Death-row exoneree Robert DuBoise (pic­tured) is suing the City of Tampa, four Tampa police offi­cers, and the foren­sic odon­tol­o­gist who false­ly tes­ti­fied against him, alleg­ing that they fab­ri­cat­ed evi­dence that led to his wrong­ful con­vic­tion and death sen­tence. DuBoise was exon­er­at­ed in August 2020 after a Conviction Integrity Unit reviewed his case and new DNA evi­dence exclud­ed him as the per­pe­tra­tor of the rape and mur­der for which he was wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed and sentenced…