Publications & Testimony

A new report from the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), Unreliable Verdicts: Racial Bias and Wrongful Convictions, explores the his­to­ry of racial bias in jury selec­tion in the United States, includ­ing the last 40 years of racial­­ly-dis­­crim­i­­na­­to­ry pre­emp­to­ry jury strikes, and high­lights the grow­ing body of research show­ing that jury bias is reduced and the delib­er­a­tive process enhanced when juries are more diverse. Looking at the pool of doc­u­ment­ed death penalty…

On February 11, 2025, the Alabama House of Representatives vot­ed 86 – 5, with nine absten­tions, in favor of a bill that would expand the use of the death penal­ty to those con­vict­ed of the rape or sodomy of a child under the age of 12. This bill will be head­ed to the state Senate. If passed, the law would direct­ly vio­late United States Supreme Court prece­dent estab­lished in Kennedy V. Louisiana (2008), which found the death penal­ty an uncon­sti­tu­tion­al form of…

On February 10, 2025, Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry announced his deci­sion to end a 15-year pause on exe­cu­tions, say­ing the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections is ready to car­ry out exe­cu­tions under a new nitro­gen gas exe­cu­tion pro­to­col. In a press release fol­low­ing his announce­ment, Gov. Landry said,​“For too long, Louisiana has failed to uphold the promis­es made to vic­tims of our State’s most vio­lent crimes; but that fail­ure of leadership by…

On January 30, 2025, the Montana House of Representatives reject­ed by a vote of 51 – 49 House Bill 205 (HB 205), which would have mod­i­fied the state’s lethal injec­tion pro­to­col. The bill sought to remove lan­guage in the Montana lethal injec­tion pro­to­col that requires the use of an​“ultra-fast act­ing” drug in com­bi­na­tion with a​“chem­i­cal par­a­lyt­ic agent” and replace it with broad­er ter­mi­nol­o­gy that would allow for the use of any​“sub­stance or sub­stances in a lethal…

For the third con­sec­u­tive ses­sion, the Georgia House of Representatives is review­ing a bill seek­ing to pro­vide bet­ter pro­tec­tions to cap­i­tal defen­dants with intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ties. Currently, the state requires a defen­dant to prove​“beyond a rea­son­able doubt” that they have an intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty – the only death penal­ty state to have this unusu­al­ly high stan­dard. Introduced by a bipar­ti­san group of leg­is­la­tors on January 27, 2025, HB 123 would…

When California Governor Gavin Newsom announced a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions in 2019, he said that the state’s​“death penal­ty sys­tem has been, by all mea­sures, a fail­ure.” He explained that the death penal­ty​“has dis­crim­i­nat­ed against defen­dants who are men­tal­ly ill, Black and brown, or can’t afford expen­sive legal representation…[while pro­vid­ing] no pub­lic safe­ty ben­e­fit or val­ue as a deter­rent.” In 2024, California courts agreed that exe­cu­tion was not the…

Henderson Hill has ded­i­cat­ed his career to plac­ing race and the death penal­ty on tri­al. This month, the Death Penalty Information Center cel­e­brates Black History Month by rec­og­niz­ing Mr. Hill’s ongo­ing con­tri­bu­tions to the modern death…

On February 7, 2025, Johnston County Superior Court Judge Wayland Sermons ruled “[r]ace was a sig­nif­i­cant fac­tor” in both jury selec­tion and the deci­sion to impose death in the case of Hasson Bacote and grant­ed relief for Mr. Bacote from his death sen­tence under the pro­vi­sions of North Carolina’s Racial Justice Act (RJA). Judge Sermons also found racial dis­crim­i­na­tion taint­ed all death sen­tences in Johnston County and neigh­bor­ing Harnett and Lee Counties, potentially…

On January 16, 2025, Taiwan car­ried out its first exe­cu­tion since April 2020. Huang Linkai, who was sen­tenced to death in 2017 for the 2013 mur­ders of his ex-girl­friend and her moth­er, was exe­cut­ed at the Taipei Detention Center. Although Mr. Huang’s attor­ney filed a last-minute appeal, the execution…