Publications & Testimony

Kentucky pros­e­cu­tors have dropped cap­i­tal charges against two defen­dants who had chal­lenged the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the death penal­ty for crimes com­mit­ted by offend­ers younger than 21 years old. On April 21, 2021, pros­e­cu­tors announced that they will no longer seek the death penal­ty against Efrain Diaz, Jr. and Justin Delone Smith, two of the three ado­les­cents accused of the 2015 killing University of Kentucky student…

NEWS (4/​29/​21) — Oklahoma: The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals has vacat­ed the con­vic­tions and death sen­tences of two more death-row pris­on­ers who, the court found, had com­mit­ted their offens­es against Native Americans on trib­al lands. Applying the U.S. Supreme Court’s land­mark trib­al sov­er­eign­ty rul­ing in McGirt v. Oklahoma, the court found that the mur­ders for which Benjamin Robert Cole Sr. and James Chandler Ryder…

The Supreme Court of Appeal in Malawi has declared the country’s death-penal­­ty law uncon­sti­tu­tion­al, mak­ing the south­east African nation the 22^nd sub-Saharan coun­try to abol­ish the death penal­ty for all offens­es. Amnesty International report­ed that 27 pris­on­ers were on Malawi’s death row at the end of 2020. The high court’s rul­ing, issued April 28, 2021, direct­ed that they…

The his­to­ry of racial oppres­sion and lynch­ing in the U.S. South has, civ­il rights advo­cate Martin Luther King III writes,​“too fre­quent­ly … gone untold and unad­dressed.” But, he says in an April 17, 2021 op-ed in USA Today, Virginia​’s repeal of the death penal­ty​“shows us what is pos­si­ble when we con­front this country’s racist past, and acknowl­edge how racism per­me­ates this country’s…

As a state leg­is­la­tor in 1981, Jim Petro (pic­tured) sup­port­ed a bill to rein­state Ohio​’s death penal­ty after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the state’s pre­vi­ous cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment statute. Later, as Ohio Attorney General, he super­vised 19 exe­cu­tions in the state. Since then, his views have changed and he recent­ly co-authored an op-ed in the Columbus Dispatch urg­ing the leg­is­la­ture to repeal the state’s…

The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to review a Georgia death-penal­­ty case in which the pros­e­cu­tion was per­mit­ted to make a vis­i­bly shack­led defen­dant reen­act the mur­der in front of the jury, while his defense counsel…

The Tennessee state leg­is­la­ture has over­whelm­ing­ly approved and sent to the gov­er­nor a bill that cre­ates a pro­ce­dure by which death-row pris­on­ers can obtain judi­cial review of claims that they are inel­i­gi­ble for the death penal­ty because of intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty. On April 26, 2021, HB 1062 passed the Tennessee House by a vote of 89 – 4 and the Senate by a vote of…

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) has amend­ed its exe­cu­tion pro­to­col to per­mit a con­demned pris­on­er to be accom­pa­nied in the exe­cu­tion cham­ber by a spir­i­tu­al advis­er of his or…

NEWS (4/​21 – 4/​23/​21) — Texas: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has ruled against Texas death-row pris­on­ers in three separate…

The Alabama Judicial Inquiry Commission has sus­pend­ed an African-American judge who declared the state’s death penal­ty statute uncon­sti­tu­tion­al, accus­ing her of unpro­fes­sion­al con­duct and anti-death…