Publications & Testimony

On October 13, 2025, Governor Gavin Newsom signed the lat­est set of amend­ments to California’s Racial Justice Act (CRJA) into law, strength­en­ing a ground­break­ing piece of leg­is­la­tion that pro­hibits crim­i­nal con­vic­tions and sen­tences based on race, eth­nic­i­ty, or nation­al ori­gin. Under this law, cap­i­tal­ly con­vict­ed pris­on­ers can pur­sue mean­ing­ful relief, beyond just the rever­sal of a death sen­tence, if the state is found to have violated these…

Update: Mr. Shockley was exe­cut­ed by lethal injec­tion on October 14. He was pro­nounced dead at 6:13 p.m. Yesterday, Missouri Governor Mike Kehoe denied clemen­cy to Lance Shockley, who is sched­uled for exe­cu­tion today at 6 p.m. However, a recent sur­vey found that Missouri vot­ers, by a bipar­ti­san two-thirds major­i­ty, would pre­fer to see Mr. Shockley’s death sen­tence com­mut­ed. Dr. Nicholas Scurich of the University of California, Irvine, found that 65% of the 440…

October 9, 2025 UPDATE: On October 9, 2025, just a week before his sched­uled exe­cu­tion, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) grant­ed Robert Roberson a stay of exe­cu­tion and remand­ed his case to the dis­trict court for fur­ther con­sid­er­a­tion of his request for relief based upon relief offered in a sim­i­lar case, Ex parte Roark. Like Mr. Roberson’s case, Ex parte Roark**, also involved a con­vic­tion based the now…

October 9, 2025 UPDATE: On October 9, 2025, just a week before his sched­uled exe­cu­tion, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) grant­ed Robert Roberson a stay of exe­cu­tion and remand­ed his case to the dis­trict court for fur­ther con­sid­er­a­tion of his request for relief based upon relief offered in a sim­i­lar case, Ex parte Roark. Like Mr. Roberson’s case, Ex parte Roark**, also involved a con­vic­tion based the now dis­cred­it­ed​“Shaken…

On September 23, 2025, North Carolina law­mak­ers approved and for­ward­ed to Governor Josh Stein for sig­na­ture House Bill 307 — also known as​“Iryna’s Law” — which pro­pos­es sweep­ing changes to the state’s crim­i­nal laws. HB 307 impos­es stricter pre­tri­al release con­di­tions, requires invol­un­tary men­tal health eval­u­a­tions for defen­dants under cer­tain cir­cum­stances, short­ens the time­line for cap­i­tal case appeals, and pro­vides an alter­na­tive to the cur­rent method of…

Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO) has report­ed that at least 1000 peo­ple have been exe­cut­ed in Iran between January 1 and September 23, 2025 — a thir­ty year high. This is the fifth con­sec­u­tive year that Iran has expe­ri­enced an increase in exe­cu­tions, with the biggest year-over-year increase (43%) occur­ring in 2023, in the after­math of the​“Women, Life, Freedom” nation­wide protests. Most exe­cu­tions con­tin­ue to be car­ried out for offens­es that do not meet the…

In a motion filed September 20, 2025, attor­neys for Luigi Mangione, indict­ed in the 2024 killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, have filed a broad chal­lenge to the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the fed­er­al death penal­ty, argu­ing that it is applied arbi­trar­i­ly, in vio­la­tion of Fifth Amendment’s due process pro­tec­tions and the Eighth Amendment’s pro­hi­bi­tion on cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ments. They are ask­ing the United States District Court in the Southern District…