Whether, in federal habeas review of a Texas death sentence, procedural default of an ineffective assistance of appellate counsel claim may be excused when the cause of the default is initial-collateral review counsel’s own ineffectiveness.

Whether defendant’s constitutional rights were violated when the prosecutor who initially sought the death penalty subsequently votes to uphold it as a member of the state supreme court.

Montez Spradley, who was sentenced to death in Alabama for a 2004 murder he did not commit, was released from prison in September 2015. He had spent 9.5 years behind bars, 3.5 years of them on death row. He is 32 years old.

A judge in North Carolina in 2012 has once again confirmed that race plays an integral role in our capital punishment system. Judge Gregory Weeks found intentional discrimination by Cumberland County prosecutors against African-American potential jurors in the cases of three capital defendants, Tilmon Golphin, Christina Walters, and Quintel Augustine. He sentenced all three defendants to life without parole under North Carolina's historic Racial Justice Act. The decision is currently on appeal.