Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

News 

Feb 27, 2025

New Podcast: The Past, Present, and Future of the California Racial Justice Act

In the February 2025 episode of 12:01: The Death Penalty in Context, DPI Managing Director Anne Holsinger speaks with three experts on California’s Racial Justice Act (RJA). Natasha Minsker, an attor­ney and con­sul­tant, for­mer­ly of the ACLU, speaks on the his­to­ry of the RJA and the impe­tus for its pas­sage. Genevie Gold, research and writ­ing fel­low at the Office of the State Public Defender (OSPD), describes the process that an RJA claim fol­lows through the legal sys­tem, and…

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News 

Feb 24, 2025

Article of Interest: Cato Institute Fellow Critiques Medical Ethics Double Standard Around Executions

In a February blog post, Cato Institute Senior Fellow Jeffrey A. Singer crit­i­cizes the use of med­ical­ized lethal injec­tion, high­light­ing the dou­ble stan­dard under which pro­ce­dures that med­ical pro­fes­sion­als are eth­i­cal­ly barred from car­ry­ing out are not only allowed, but required, of law enforce­ment per­son­nel.​“A doc­tor who inten­tion­al­ly per­forms cru­el and med­ical­ly unjus­ti­fi­able pro­ce­dures that cause pain and suf­fer­ing could face crim­i­nal charges. If…

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News 

Feb 04, 2025

Florida Legislature Passes Unconstitutional Bill that Mandates the Death Penalty for ​“Unauthorized Aliens”

On January 28, 2025, the Florida Legislature passed an immi­gra­tion bill that includes a pro­vi­sion man­dat­ing the auto­mat­ic impo­si­tion of the death penal­ty for​“unau­tho­rized aliens” con­vict­ed of a cap­i­tal offense, despite long­stand­ing U.S. prece­dent and inter­na­tion­al law pro­hibit­ing manda­to­ry death sen­tences. The bill was intro­duced dur­ing a short spe­cial leg­isla­tive ses­sion called by Governor Ron DeSantis (pic­tured), leav­ing lit­tle to no time for public…

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News 

Jan 30, 2025

Arizona’s Hourly Compensation for Post-Conviction Capital Counsel Found Inadequate for Certification by Outgoing Attorney General Merrick Garland

In one of his final acts before leav­ing office, out­go­ing Attorney General Merrick Garland denied a long­stand­ing request by Arizona state offi­cials for the state to be​“cer­ti­fied” so it could take advan­tage of cer­tain pro­ce­dur­al ben­e­fits in fed­er­al habeas review of cap­i­tal cas­es. These changes are avail­able only when a state sat­is­fies cer­tain require­ments, and ben­e­fit state actors by impos­ing greater restric­tions on a prisoner’s abil­i­ty to raise claims and by…

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News 

Jan 29, 2025

12:01: The Death Penalty in Context — The Death Penalty in 2024

In this month’s episode of 12:01: The Death Penalty in Context, Managing Director Anne Holsinger speaks with DPI Communications Associate Hayley Bedard, about The Death Penalty in 2024, which high­lights trends and events relat­ed to the death penal­ty. 2024 marked the tenth con­sec­u­tive year dur­ing which few­er than 30 peo­ple were exe­cut­ed (25) and few­er than 50 peo­ple were sen­tenced to death (26), while high pro­file cas­es of death-sen­­­tenced people attracted…

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News 

Jan 27, 2025

Federal Appeals Court Allows Arizona to Limit Victim Contact

On January 23, 2025, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals lift­ed an injunc­tion enjoin­ing the enforce­ment of an Arizona statute, Victim Contact Limits, which pro­hibits crim­i­nal defense teams from con­tact­ing crime vic­tims and their fam­i­ly mem­bers direct­ly. The restric­tions are found in Arizona’s Victim Rights Implementation Act (Rev. Stat. Ann. § 13- 4433(B)) and also apply to death penal­ty cas­es. The deci­sion means that pris­on­ers and their lawyers may no longer engage directly…

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