Monique Hicks, one of the twelve people who served on the Alabama jury that convicted Toforest Johnson and sentenced him to death, said in an op-ed published on April 22, 2024 that she now believes Mr. Johnson deserves a new trial. Ms. Hicks recounts the new evidence that has come to light in the case and writes, “My role in the wrongful conviction of an innocent man keeps me awake at night.”  Mr. Johnson’s conviction rested on the testimony of a single witness who, despite not knowing Mr. Johnson, claimed to hear his voice confessing to the crime on the phone and who was secretly pa ..read more

Justices Debate How Courts Should Assess Aggravating and Mitigating Factors in Capital Cases on Appeal   On April 17, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Thornell v. Jones, a case implicating the test for ineffective assistance of counsel—and the first and only oral argument in a death penalty case scheduled this term. Arizona appealed the Ninth Circuit’s decision vacating the death sentence of Danny Lee Jones, which found that Mr. Jones was prejudiced by his attorney’s failure to present key mitigating evidence as to Mr. Jones’ brain damage, childhood physical and sexual abuse, and ..read more

A new report issued April 17, 2024 by the UK-based international human rights organization Reprieve found racial disparities in the occurrence of botched executions in the United States. As reported in The Guardian, Reprieve analyzed all lethal injection executions between 1976 and 2023. It chronicled 73 confirmed botched procedures and found that 8% of executions of Black people were botched (37 times out of 465 executions), compared with 4% for white people (28 out of 780 ..read more

On April 16, 2024, the Louisiana Senate Judiciary B Committee unanimously voted to advance a bill that would remove nitrogen hypoxia from the state’s available methods of execution. Introduced by state Senator Katrina Jackson-Andrews, Senate Bill 430 is supported by the Jews Against Gassing Coalition, an organization consisting of Jewish Louisiana residents who oppose state-sanctioned gas executions. “We recognize, of course, that the gassing of innocent victims in the Holocaust is quite different from executing a convicted criminal,” said Naomi Yavneh-Klos, a member of the coalition and Loyol ..read more

On April 16, 2024, the Biden Administration provided assurances to the United Kingdom that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who is facing extradition to the United States on espionage charges, would not face the death penalty. A hearing is now scheduled in London on May 20 to evaluate the assurances and decide whether Mr. Assange has any remaining legal recourse. A few weeks earlier, the High Court in London granted Mr. Assange a reprieve from extradition, agreeing to grant him an appeal if the United States was unable to provide assurances that it would not seek the death penalty by Apr ..read more

On Monday, April 15, Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor issued dissents over the Supreme Court’s refusal to hear the petitions of two death-sentenced prisoners who alleged official misconduct in their cases. In the first case, Dillion Compton alleged that Texas prosecutors illegally used thirteen of their fifteen peremptory strikes to remove female prospective jurors because of their gender. In the second case, Kurt Michaels argued that California police officers unlawfully continued to question him after he invoked his Miranda rights, leading Mr. Michaels to eventually co ..read more

On April 12, 2024, Judge Arturo Nelson signed an Agreed Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law submitted by the prosecution and defense stating that Melissa Lucio (pictured) was not given access to favorable information in the prosecution’s possession at the time of trial.  The acknowledgement of this constitutional error resulted in Judge Nelson’s recommendation to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) that Ms. Lucio’s conviction and death sentence be overturned. The ruling marks the latest chapter in a saga that saw Ms. Lucio narrowly avoid an execution date in 2022 following a hi ..read more

On April 12, 2024, Long Island University celebrated the 2023 George Polk Awards in Journalism, honoring investigative journalists and recognizing sixteen former winners, including formerly death-sentenced prisoner Wilbert Rideau. Mr. Rideau spent forty-four years incarcerated in Louisiana’s Angola State Penitentiary where he created The Lifer, one of the first Black prison periodicals. Sentenced to death in 1961 at age nineteen, Mr. Rideau spent twelve years on death row before the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Furman v. Georgia (1972), which struck down Louisiana’s capital punish ..read more

On April 5, 2024, Cameron County District Attorney Luis Saenz and Innocence Project attorney Vanessa Potkin released a joint statement regarding Melissa Lucio’s case, which has been pending additional review for almost two years. On January 11, 2023, the parties submitted an Agreed Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law stating that the defense was not given access to favorable information in the prosecution’s possession at trial, an error that they agree should entitle Ms. Lucio to a new trial. “Under Texas procedure the trial court must make a recommendation to the CCA which is the only cou ..read more

On April 9, 2024, the California Office of the State Public Defender, along with several civil rights groups, filed an extraordinary writ petition at the California Supreme Court arguing that the state’s capital punishment system violates the state’s Constitution because of its racially biased implementation. In 2021, the California Committee on Revision of the Penal Code confirmed that racial bias is entrenched in the state's death penalty system. “The California Constitution does not permit a two-tiered system of justice where the most severe sentence the state has on its books imposed overw ..read more