Entries by Anumta Ali

On February 18, 2026, a three-judge pan­el of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit heard oral argu­ments in a case seek­ing to open exe­cu­tions in Indiana to press wit­ness­es. The First Amendment chal­lenge to Indiana’s absolute ban was ini­ti­at­ed a year ago by a broad coali­tion of media out­lets seek­ing, at that time, to wit­ness the exe­cu­tion of Benjamin Ritchie. The coali­tion was unsuc­cess­ful in that endeav­or; Mr. Ritchie’s May 20, 2025, exe­cu­tion would be later…

For decades, Texas per­formed exe­cu­tions at the high­est rate in the coun­try. It has car­ried out the most exe­cu­tions in the mod­ern era, with near­ly five times the num­ber as the next high­est state. However, that trend has changed in recent years, as both the num­ber of new death sen­tences and exe­cu­tions has sig­nif­i­cant­ly declined. The Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty’s (TCADP) 2025 Annual Report exam­ines the dwin­dling use of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment and the…

Indiana’s seem­ing­ly para­dox­i­cal resump­tion of exe­cu­tions, with three over the last year, is draw­ing scruti­ny from many cor­ners of the state. Governor Mike Braun, leg­is­la­tors from both polit­i­cal par­ties, pub­lic defend­ers and even pros­e­cu­tors have raised ques­tions about the costs of pros­e­cut­ing cap­i­tal cas­es and obtain­ing drugs for exe­cu­tions; the fail­ure of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment to deter crime; and the increas­ing reluc­tance of Indiana juries to sentence…

Indiana is set to exe­cute Roy Lee Ward on October 10, 2025, despite ongo­ing con­cerns about the cost of lethal injec­tion and the lack of trans­paren­cy sur­round­ing the state’s exe­cu­tion pro­to­cols in the wake of a sus­pect­ed botched exe­cu­tion ear­li­er this year. Mr. Ward will be the third indi­vid­ual exe­cut­ed after a 15-year pause in exe­cu­tions in Indiana. In July 2025, Governor Mike Braun said he would not renew the state’s sup­ply of lethal injec­tion drugs, noting the…

Acclaimed nov­el­ist and for­mer crim­i­nal defense lawyer John Grisham is set to release a new book titled SHAKEN: The Rush to Execute an Innocent Man on June 9^th, 2026. The book is a non-fic­­­tion account of the con­tentious case of Robert Roberson, the Texas man who has been on death row for over twen­ty years and is now fac­ing exe­cu­tion in Texas in October 2025, despite strong evi­dence of his innocence. > ​“Robert Roberson is inno­cent because the evi­dence devel­oped in recent…

In a change from pre­vi­ous pol­i­cy and prac­tice, Oscar Smith spent the last two weeks of his life in strict iso­la­tion, sep­a­rat­ed from oth­ers on death row, sur­veilled 24 hours a day, and only per­mit­ted vis­its by his attor­neys and spir­i­tu­al advi­sor. On May 15, the Nashville Banner detailed Tennessee’s new pol­i­cy to iso­late Mr. Smith imme­di­ate­ly before his exe­cu­tion. In com­ments to the Banner, Kelley Henry, one of Mr. Smith’s attor­neys, described the isolation…

On May 8, 2025, Mikal Deen Mahdi’s lawyers sub­mit­ted to the South Carolina Supreme Court the state pathol­o­gy report in his case which sug­gests that Mr. Mahdi’s exe­cu­tion last month by fir­ing squad did not go as planned. Pathologists report­ed that not only did Mr. Mahdi have two wounds as opposed to the antic­i­pat­ed three wounds from three South Carolina Corrections Department (SCDC) shoot­ers, but also that they missed the intend­ed tar­get over his heart, prolonging his…