Publications & Testimony

On March 24, 2025, Iwao Hakamada was award­ed just over $217 mil­lion yen ($1.4 mil­lion) in com­pen­sa­tion after spend­ing 46 years wrong­ful­ly incar­cer­at­ed on Japan’s death row. According to Mr. Hakamada’s legal rep­re­sen­ta­tive, Hideyo Ogawa, this award marks the​“high­est” com­pen­sa­tion ever pro­vid­ed for a wrong­ful con­vic­tion. Mr. Hakamada, who was exon­er­at­ed last year, is only the fifth death-sen­­tenced pris­on­er to receive a retri­al in post-World War II Japan, all of…

On March 14, 2025, a group of nine death row pris­on­ers in Tennessee filed a law­suit chal­leng­ing the state’s sole use of pen­to­bar­bi­tal in its revised lethal injec­tion pro­to­col, argu­ing it cre­ates a​“high risk of a tor­tur­ous death.” In December 2024, the Tennessee Department of Correction (TDOC) com­plet­ed a mul­ti-year lethal injec­tion pro­to­col review and announced that instead of the pre­vi­ous three-drug pro­to­col, the state would shift to rely on just one drug:…

Thirty years ago this month, the Supreme Court in its land­mark deci­sion Roper v. Simmons found cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment for indi­vid­u­als under 18 years of age uncon­sti­tu­tion­al under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. In explain­ing their deci­sion, the Court drew in part on​“sci­en­tif­ic and soci­o­log­i­cal” stud­ies show­ing that a lack of matu­ri­ty in youth can lead to​“impetu­ous and ill-con­sid­ered actions and deci­sions,” which sup­port­ed the idea that this cohort…

On March 11, in sep­a­rate deci­sions, a fed­er­al court in Louisiana and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) stayed the upcom­ing exe­cu­tions of David Wood (sched­uled for exe­cu­tion in Texas on March 13) and Jessie Hoffman (sched­uled for exe­cu­tion in Louisiana on March 18). In Mr. Wood’s case, the TCCA grant­ed a stay of exe­cu­tion to allow the state more time to address the eight claims Mr. Wood assert­ed in his state habeas claim. In Mr. Hoffman’s case, the U.S. District Court for the Middle…

On March 4, 2025, the Georgia House of Representatives, in a 172 – 0 vote, unan­i­mous­ly passed HB 123, which would pro­vide pre­tri­al hear­ings for cap­i­tal defen­dants to raise intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty claims and would low­er the stan­dard of proof for those claims from ​“beyond a rea­son­able doubt” to a ​“pre­pon­der­ance of evi­dence,” in line with oth­er the oth­er 26 states that still retain the death penal­ty. The bill was orig­i­nal­ly intro­duced by Republican Representative Bill Werkheiser dur­ing Georgia’s…