Publications & Testimony

New pub­lic opin­ion polls show that, con­sis­tent with nation­al trends, sup­port for the death penal­ty is declin­ing in the con­ser­v­a­tive strong­holds of Utah and…

The Florida Attorney General’s office has tak­en steps to block DNA test­ing agreed to by local pros­e­cu­tors and approved by the tri­al court for two Florida death-row pris­on­ers who have pro­fessed their inno­cence for more…

In a rul­ing that pro­voked a sharp dis­sent from the Court’s lib­er­al minor­i­ty, the U.S. Supreme Court has declined to review the case of a death-row pris­on­er whom pros­e­cu­tors and defense lawyers agree is not eli­gi­ble for the death penal­ty as a result of recent revi­sions of the def­i­n­i­tion of intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty by the…

The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board has for a sec­ond time rec­om­mend­ed that Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt grant clemen­cy to death-row pris­on­er Julius Jones (pic­tured during the…

A Texas dis­trict court judge has rec­om­mend­ed that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) deny death-row pris­on­er Rodney Reed​’s inno­cence claim and allow his con­vic­tion and death sen­tence to stand for the 1996 mur­der of Stacey Stites. In a November 1, 2021 deci­sion after ten days of tes­ti­mo­ny in July and clos­ing state­ments in October, Bastrop County District Court Judge J.D. Langley issued Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law and…

Two for­mer Alabama gov­er­nors, one a Democrat and one a Republican, have expressed seri­ous doubts about the death penal­ty in the state and…

Oklahoma​’s lega­cy of botched exe­cu­tions has con­tin­ued to grow, as media wit­ness­es to the October 28, 2021 exe­cu­tion of John Grant (pic­tured) report­ed that Grant suf­fered repeat­ed con­vul­sions and vom­it­ed over a near­ly 15-minute peri­od after he was admin­is­tered the controversial execution…

Within hours of a par­ti­san vote in the United States Supreme Court lift­ing an appeals court stay, Oklahoma exe­cut­ed John Grant on October 28, 2021, end­ing a six-year hia­tus brought on by a series of exe­cu­tion mishaps in 2014 and 2015. Eyewitnesses report­ed that Grant con­vulsed more than two dozen times and vom­it­ed as Oklahoma put him to death with a con­tro­ver­sial three-drug exe­cu­tion cock­tail whose constitutionality…

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…

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…