Publications & Testimony

Three groups of fair justice advocates have filed friend-of-the-court briefs asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review and overturn a Texas appeals court ruling that denied a new trial to a death-row prisoner who prosecutors and the trial court agree was convicted based on false DNA testimony by a disgraced police crime lab. On July 26, 2022, The Innocence Network and The Center for Integrity in Forensic Sciences, Inc. filed a joint amicus brief on behalf of Areli Escobar asking the justices to…

The innocence case of Alabama death-row prisoner Toforest Johnson (pictured, center) has drawn substantial support from former judges, jurors, prosecutors, and state bar presidents, but disinterest by current Alabama officials has left Johnson languishing on death row. So argues journalist Radley Balko in his Washington Post column on July 28, 2022. Balko’s column revisits Johnson’s case and details the evidence that strongly points towards his innocence. Advocating for a new trial, Balko…

As Massachusetts formally exonerated the last person condemned for witchcraft in the colony, efforts are under way to clear the names of the 46 people wrongfully charged with witchcraft in neighboring Connecticut during the 17^th century Puritan witch hunts. 329 years after she was wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death, the Massachusetts state senate amended the state’s budget to include a provision to exonerate Elizabeth Johnson Jr., the last of the people convicted during the Salem…

Alabama put Joe Nathan James, Jr. to death on July 28, 2022 against the wishes of his victim’s family in an execution marred by an hours-long failure to set a lethal-injection intravenous line and an embarrassing dress-code controversy in which a corrections official told a female reporter she would not be able to witness the execution because her skirt was too short and she was wearing open-toed shoes and subjected another female reporter to a clothing inspection. The daughters and brother of…

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has overturned a South Carolina death-row prisoner’s death sentence after finding that the sentencing judge in his case had ignored uncontested evidence of the defendant’s mental illness and history of severe childhood abuse and neglect. In a 2 – 1 ruling on July 26, 2022, a panel of the Fourth Circuit vacated the death sentence imposed on Quincy Allen by Richland County Circuit Court Judge G. Thomas Cooper in March 2005 for the murders…

State and federal courts have overturned three California death sentences in a span of two weeks from late June to mid-July 2022. Death-row prisoners Richard Clark, Michael Bramit, and Andrew Lancaster were all granted relief on claims related to defense counsel’s inadequate performance or jury-related issues. Clark and Bramit will receive new penalty-phase trials. Andrew Lancaster was sentenced to death in Los Angeles County in 1998. After accepting a stipulation between Lancaster’s counsel…

Posted July 27, 2022 The Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) is looking for a law student for a fall 2022 paid internship that will be remote with the possibility of some in-person work. This law student will conduct legal research about the death penalty. The work will include research about prosecutorial misconduct, governmental transparency, the consideration of mitigation evidence, and racial bias in capital sentencing. With supervision by DPIC staff, the legal intern will be guided in…

Amid a violent crackdown on pro-democracy movements, Myanmar’s military junta executed four men, including a prominent activist and a former lawmaker. As family members of the political prisoner reel from the loss, human rights experts and many in the international community have decried the country’s first judicial executions in decades. The U.S. Secretary of State described the executions as “blatant attempts to extinguish democracy.” Phyo Zeya Thaw, one of the men executed, was a former…

Former Oklahoma Governor Brad Henry (pictured) and former U.S. Magistrate Judge Andy Lester, who co-chaired the Oklahoma Death Penalty Review Commission in 2017, have called on state officials to halt the scheduled executions of 25 death-row prisoners. In a guest column in The Oklahoman on July 24, 2022, Gov. Henry, a Democrat, and Lester, a Republican, write that “All Oklahomans, regardless of one’s stance on capital punishment, should insist on an unwavering commitment to fairness and…

Lawyers for James Coddington (pictured), the first person scheduled to be executed as part of Oklahoma’s two-year execution spree, are seeking clemency for a man they say “exemplifies the principles of redemption.” In a petition filed July 15, 2022, they ask the Oklahoma Pardons and Parole Board to commute Coddington’s death sentence to life without parole, describing Coddington’s sincere remorse and exemplary behavioral record on death row. The petition asks the Board to commute Coddington’s…