Capital Clemency News & Developments

On Wednesday, March 13th, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order placing a moratorium on executions in the state, granting a reprieve for all 737 death row prisoners – 25 of whom have exhausted all their appeals. The order also calls for withdrawing California’s lethal injection protocols and immediately closing the execution chamber at

While clemency is an inherently unpredictable and discretionary process—which can make engaging in clemency representation daunting and even frustrating for attorneys—it is also an incredibly important part of a death penalty case. If approached thoughtfully and with the same amount of planning and strategizing that goes into preparing capital cases for review in other parts of the legal process, it can significantly increase the chances of saving a client’s life.

In 2012, Governor Kasich granted clemency to Ronald Post. In a statement about the decision to commute Mr. Post’s sentence, Governor Kasich said that “regardless of the heinous nature of their crime, a criminal defendant is entitled to an effective defense, especially in a death penalty case.” At Mr. Post’s trial, defense counsel clashed over how

On April 11, 2018, the state of Ohio was scheduled to execute William Montgomery for the 1986 murders of Cynthia Tincher and Debra Ogle. In the weeks preceding the execution, advocates for Montgomery launched an increasingly public-facing media campaign with the tagline, #toomuchdoubt. Montgomery’s attorneys and supporters argued that there were too many questions concerning

On February 22, 2018, less than one hour before Thomas “Bart” Whitaker was scheduled to be executed by the state of Texas, Governor Greg Abbott made history in the Lone Star State by granting clemency to a capital prisoner. Governor Abbott accepted a rare unanimous recommendation from the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to

On August 22, 2017, Missouri Governor Eric Greitens issued a reprieve to Marcellus Williams only a few hours before Mr. Williams was to be executed for the 1998 murder of a former newspaper reporter, Felicia Gayle. Governor Greitens simultaneously took the rare step of exercising his clemency power under the state constitution to appoint a

Although clemency is widely regarded as a critical stage of any death penalty case, its role as an ‘extra-judicial’ process allows for consideration of issues and concerns that the courts are frequently not empowered to consider. Of particular note in the context of clemency is its potential intersection with larger conceptions of ‘mercy’ – something which,

On Wednesday, November 18, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) overturned a lower court order staying the execution of Raphael Holiday, despite significant concerns regarding the performance of his attorneys in the months and weeks leading up to his execution. In particular, observers were troubled by Holiday’s attorneys’ stated refusal to seek clemency on