Publications & Testimony

Three mem­bers of the jury who vot­ed to con­vict and sen­tence Toforest Johnson (pic­tured, cen­ter) to death in his cap­i­tal tri­al in Birmingham in 1998 are now urg­ing Alabama​’s courts to grant him a new tri­al. Having learned of sig­nif­i­cant pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct dur­ing Johnson’s tri­al for the mur­der of a sheriff’s deputy, includ­ing the rev­e­la­tion that a key wit­ness lied to col­lect reward mon­ey, Jay…

The California Supreme Court has reversed the con­vic­tion of a death-row pris­on­er who was per­mit­ted to waive coun­sel and rep­re­sent him­self despite a men­tal health expert’s find­ing that he was too men­tal­ly ill even…

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has affirmed Dylann Roof​’s fed­er­al-court con­vic­tions and death sen­tences for the racial­ly moti­vat­ed mur­ders of nine parish­ioners in an his­toric Charleston, South Carolina African-American…

In the 1970s, the United States Supreme Court famous­ly declared that​“death is dif­fer­ent” from all oth­er pun­ish­ments and, as such, required the pro­vi­sion of height­ened pro­ce­dur­al safe­guards to ensure that its appli­ca­tion was not cru­el or unusu­al. But in a new arti­cle, Death Penalty Exceptionalism and Administrative Law, University of Richmond law pro­fes­sor and cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment schol­ar Corinna B. Lain (pic­tured) argues…

In a con­fus­ing about-face that has angered human rights activists, the Malawian Supreme Court of Appeal has retreat­ed from a pri­or deci­sion of the court that had appeared to have abol­ished the African nation’s death penal­ty. On August 18, 2021, sev­en jus­tices of the high court issued a​“per­fect­ed” judg­ment in the case of Khoviwa v. The Republic declar­ing that the orig­i­nal opin­ion, authored by since-retired Justice of Appeal Dunstain…

A Nevada death-row pris­on­er has asked for a clemen­cy hear­ing to present new evi­dence of sig­nif­i­cant brain dam­age and post-trau­­mat­ic stress dis­or­der caused by mil­i­tary ser­vice and childhood…

1990s amend­ments to fed­er­al law that severe­ly restrict­ed fed­er­al judi­cial review of state con­vic­tions are enabling states to com­mit mis­car­riages of jus­tice that risk the lives and free­dom of inno­cent peo­ple across the coun­try, writes Washington Post colum­nist Radley Balko…

As China await­ed a deci­sion on whether Canada would extra­dite a top Chinese busi­ness­woman to the U.S. on crim­i­nal charges, a Chinese court upheld a con­tro­ver­sial death sen­tence imposed on a Canadian man, fur­ther esca­lat­ing tensions between…

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit has upheld a fed­er­al dis­trict court rul­ing that Arkansas death-row pris­on­er Alvin Jackson is inel­i­gi­ble for the death penal­ty because of intellectual…

A coali­tion of advo­cates for vic­tims of domes­tic and gen­der-based vio­lence, for­mer pros­e­cu­tors, legal schol­ars, and inno­cence orga­ni­za­tions have filed briefs in the U.S. Supreme Court in sup­port of a Texas woman who was sen­tenced to death for what foren­sic evi­dence sug­gests may have been an acci­den­tal fall that killed her two-year-old…