Publications & Testimony

Items: 861 — 870


Jul 19, 2021

Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Descendants of Ida B. Wells Call for Freedom for Pervis Payne

As the first court hear­ing on Pervis Paynes claim that his death sen­tence must be vacat­ed because of his intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty was about to get under­way, promi­nent civ­il rights lead­ers and rel­a­tives of a civ­il rights icon added their voic­es to efforts to free the Tennessee death-row pris­on­er, who has con­sis­tent­ly asserted his…

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Jul 19, 2021

Capital Case Roundup — Death Penalty Court Decisions for the Week of July 192021

NEWS (7/​21/​21) — Ohio: The Ohio Supreme Court has vacat­ed the con­vic­tion and death sen­tence for George Brinkman, find­ing that he had not been advised of crit­i­cal con­sti­tu­tion­al rights when he entered a guilty plea in his 2018 cap­i­tal tri­al and that his plea was there­fore invalid. The jus­tices vacat­ed Brinkman’s plea and returned his case to the Cuyahoga County court to con­duct a new…

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Jul 16, 2021

In Partisan Vote, Supreme Court Summarily Reverses Grant of Penalty-Phase Relief for Alabama Death-Row Prisoner Who May Be Intellectually Disabled

In a rul­ing ren­dered along par­ti­san lines with­out ben­e­fit of oral argu­ment, the United States Supreme Court has over­turned the deci­sion of a fed­er­al appeals court that had vacat­ed the death sen­tence imposed on an Alabama death-row pris­on­er whose tri­al lawyers had failed to obtain expert assis­tance to present evi­dence of his intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty. By a vote of 6 – 3, with all mem­bers of the con­ser­v­a­tive bloc of jus­tices vot­ing for the pros­e­cu­tion, the Court on…

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Jul 15, 2021

Hidden Costs: Liability Judgments for Wrongful Capital Prosecutions Cost Taxpayers in Death-Penalty States Hundreds of Millions of Dollars

Studies have con­sis­tent­ly found that a sys­tem of crim­i­nal law in which the death penal­ty is avail­able as a pun­ish­ment is far more expen­sive than a sys­tem in which the most severe pun­ish­ment is life with­out parole or a long prison term. Now, as the num­ber of mur­der exon­er­a­tions mounts across the United States, a pre­vi­ous­ly hid­den cost is emerg­ing: the cost of lia­bil­i­ty for police and pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct asso­ci­at­ed with the wrong­ful use or threat­ened use of the death…

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Jul 14, 2021

One Year Later, Execution Spree Lays Bare Federal Death Penalty’s Systemic Failures

At 3:00 a.m. Central time on July 14, 2020, after his notice of exe­cu­tion had expired, the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) strapped Daniel Lewis Lee to an exe­cu­tion gur­ney in the United States Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana. With the exe­cu­tion cham­ber cur­tains closed, cor­rec­tion­al offi­cials left him there for four hours while fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors filed plead­ings in a fed­er­al appeals court to lift a stay of exe­cu­tion they had for­got­ten was still in…

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Jul 13, 2021

Editorial Boards Say Moratorium to Study Execution Practices is Not Enough, Biden Should Commute Federal Death Row

Major U.S. edi­to­r­i­al writ­ers have crit­i­cized the Biden administration’s June 30, 2021 announce­ment of a tem­po­rary mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions while the Department of Justice reviews Trump admin­is­tra­tion changes to U.S. exe­cu­tion prac­tices, say­ing that the pause for a lim­it­ed pol­i­cy review fails to ful­fill the President’s cam­paign pledge to work to end the federal death…

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Jul 12, 2021

Arizona Supreme Court Rejects Prosecution Attempt to Expedite Executions Based on Its Own Error on Shelf Life of Execution Drugs

The Arizona Supreme Court has reject­ed the efforts of Arizona pros­e­cu­tors to expe­dite the exe­cu­tions of two death-row pris­on­ers and fur­ther lim­it appeals judi­cial review of legal issues in their cas­es. The Arizona Attorney General’s office had sought to short­en judi­cial review in the cas­es of death-row pris­on­ers Frank Atwood and Clarence Dixon after learn­ing that the shelf life of the drugs it intend­ed to use in the exe­cu­tions would expire…

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