On June 19, 2024, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals set aside 68-year-old Kerry Max Cook’s con­vic­tion, find­ing him to be ​“actu­al­ly inno­cent.” Describing Mr. Cook’s case as ​“one of the most notable mur­der cas­es of the last half-cen­tu­ry,” the major­i­ty opin­ion explains that ​“when it comes to sol­id sup­port for actu­al inno­cence, this case con­tains it all — uncon­tro­vert­ed Brady vio­la­tions, proof of false tes­ti­mo­ny, admis­sions of per­jury, and new sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence.” The Death Penalty Information…

On June 17, 2024, Anderson County District Attorney Allyson Mitchell filed a motion to set an exe­cu­tion date for Texas death row pris­on­er Robert Roberson, despite his stead­fast main­te­nance of inno­cence in the death of his two-year-old daugh­ter. Mr. Roberson has spent more than 20 years on death row for a crime that, accord­ing to the Innocence Project, ​“nev­er occurred and a con­vic­tion based on the out­dat­ed and now debunked shak­en baby hypoth­e­sis.” New evi­dence indi­cates that Mr. Roberson’s…

On June 19^th, or Juneteenth, the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) will cel­e­brate the open­ing of the Freedom Monument Sculpture Park, its lat­est muse­um in Montgomery, Alabama. The 17-acre site dis­plays con­tem­po­rary art­works, first-per­son nar­ra­tives, and his­tor­i­cal arti­facts which tell the sto­ries about the more than 10 mil­lion Black peo­ple who were enslaved in the United States. Visitors to the park will embark on a unique nar­ra­tive jour­ney that explores the nation’s his­to­ry of enslave­ment and…

This is the first in a new month­ly series cov­er­ing aca­d­e­m­ic research and arti­cles in the field of capital…

June 16, 2024, marks 80 years since South Carolina exe­cut­ed 14-year-old George Stinney Jr. Historical reports indi­cate that on March 24, 1944, Mr. Stinney and his younger sis­ter, Aime, were play­ing out­side when two white girls approached them, ask­ing where they could find a par­tic­u­lar flower. Neither Mr. Stinney nor his sis­ter knew where the young girls could find these flow­ers and they quick­ly moved along. That evening, when both young girls failed to return home, a search par­ty was sent to…