Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

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 how the RJA has…

On February 11, 2025, the Alabama House of Representatives voted 86 – 5, with nine abstentions, in favor of a bill that would expand the use of the death penalty to those convicted of the rape or sodomy of a child under the age of 12. This bill will be headed to the state Senate. If passed, the law would directly violate United States Supreme Court precedent established in Kennedy V. Louisiana (2008), which found the death penalty an unconstitutional form of punishment for the rape of a child…

On January 30, 2025, the Montana House of Representatives rejected by a vote of 51 – 49 House Bill 205 (HB 205), which would have modified the state’s lethal injection protocol. The bill sought to remove language in the Montana lethal injection protocol that requires the use of an “ultra-fast acting” drug in combination with a “chemical paralytic agent” and replace it with broader terminology that would allow for the use of any “substance or substances in a lethal quantity sufficient to cause…

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 review: state senators received the full…

Retired federal magistrate Judge David Duncan (pictured), who was hired and then abruptly fired by Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs to review the state’s execution protocol, continues to raise significant concerns about the state’s lethal injection protocol. In an interview with ABC15, Judge Duncan highlighted issues with the chain of command for lethal injection drugs, transparency, and the state documentation process. “It’s shocking irony that one of my tasks was transparency — [and] on the eve of…

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 significant media attention and new…

On January 20, 2025, President Donald Trump signed more than two dozen Executive Orders, including a call to “restore” the federal death penalty. The Order, while lacking many important details, instructs the Department of Justice’s Attorney General to “pursue the death penalty for all crimes of a severity demanding its use,” including the killing of a law enforcement officer or “a capital crime committed by an illegal alien present in this country” and to encourage state attorneys general to…

Three and a half years after announcing its investigation into the federal death penalty protocol, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced on January 15, 2025 that the Department of Justice (DOJ) is rescinding the federal government’s single-drug pentobarbital lethal injection protocol. The DOJ’s decision was based on what AG Garland called “significant uncertainty” about whether executions by pentobarbital caused unnecessary pain and suffering. The DOJ’s statement expressed a desire to “err…