Entries by Anne Holsinger

I am Ready, Warden, a doc­u­men­tary about Texas death row pris­on­er John Henry Ramirez, was announced as a nom­i­nee for Best Documentary Short at the 2025 Academy Awards. The film tells the sto­ry of the days lead­ing up to Mr. Ramirez’s 2022 exe­cu­tion. It fea­tures inter­views with Mr. Ramirez and his son, Israel, as well as Nueces County District Attorney Mark Gonzalez, who oppos­es the death penal­ty and sought to halt Mr. Ramirez’s exe­cu­tion. It also cen­ters the expe­ri­ence of Aaron Castro, the son…

As vot­ers across the United States cast their bal­lots on elec­tion day, the Death Penalty Information Center’s July 2024 report, Lethal Election: How the U.S. Electoral Process Increases the Arbitrariness of the Death Penalty, pro­vides valu­able con­text on the inter­sec­tion of pol­i­tics and the death…

In hon­or of Hispanic Heritage Month (Sept. 15-Oct. 15), DPI is post­ing a week­ly fea­ture on Hispanic or Latino/​a peo­ple who have had a sig­nif­i­cant impact on the death penal­ty in the U.S. This post high­lights José Garza, District Attorney of Travis County,…

On August 4, a South Korean nation­al con­vict­ed of drug-traf­­fick­­ing was exe­cut­ed in China, accord­ing to South Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who added dur­ing a press con­fer­ence that this execution was ​“unre­lat­ed to the cur­rent bilat­er­al rela­tions” between the two nations. This was the first time a South Korean nation­al was exe­cut­ed in China for drug-traf­­fick­­ing since 2014, when four were executed. …