Entries by Leah Roemer

The death penalty has been unconstitutional for juveniles since 2005, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that people under age 18 lack the impulse control, foresight, and individuality that make adults more culpable for their crimes. In that decision, the Court acknowledged that the “qualities that distinguish juveniles from adults do not disappear when an individual turns 18.” Indeed, in the two decades since, experts have reached a broad consensus that emerging adults age 18, 19, and 20…

In March, the Idaho legislature passed a law exempting execution procedures from administrative oversight requirements — seemingly designed to undermine a pending lawsuit filed by death-sentenced prisoner Gerald Pizzuto. After the firing squad took effect as Idaho’s primary execution method on July 1, Mr. Pizzuto, alongside fellow prisoner Thomas Creech, again sued the state on July 6 for alleged administrative violations. Mr. Pizzuto initially sued the state in 2024 based on a lethal injection…

A June 30 article by Pamela Colloff, co-published in ProPublica and The New York Times Magazine, investigates Florida’s record-setting pace of executions over the past 18 months, even as the rest of the country largely “abandons” the death penalty. Ms. Colloff uses data from the Death Penalty Information Center (DPI) to emphasize Florida’s outlier status, while exploring the political implications of the execution spree and its impact on the people involved. As DPI has documented, executions…

For the past 15 years, as state after state has passed execution secrecy laws, the public has faced more questions than answers about how elected officials use their taxpayer dollars for the most serious punishment. Every active death penalty state now has a law shielding key information about executions, such as the source of lethal injection drugs, the identities of execution team members, and whether those individuals have adequate training. In 2026, as botched executions continue to make…

In recent weeks, the U.S. Supreme Court issued decisions regarding two key types of claims that often appear in capital cases: prosecutorial misconduct and intellectual disability. A bipartisan group of conservative and liberal justices carried each decision. The Court ruled in favor of Mississippi prisoner Terry Pitchford, allowing his jury discrimination claim to proceed, as well as Florida prisoner Gary Whitton, based on a lower court error in weighing his claim that prosecutors presented…

On April 24, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) released a report proposing an expansion of the federal death penalty, including adding firing squad, electrocution, and lethal gas as execution methods. The DOJ characterizes the Biden Administration’s moratorium on executions as “an unprecedented break from the [DOJ]’s longstanding approach to the death penalty,” while casting this new effort as a return to form. The DOJ further claims that the three alternative methods of execution have a…

By the time 21-year-old Clarence Curtis Jordan shot a man during a grocery store burglary in 1977, he had been struggling for most of his life with hallucinations and intellectual deficits. His IQ score placed him in the bottom 0.5% of the population. He identified the president as “John Hill” and said he often saw “old, weird, burnt-up looking people” watching him. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) found him incompetent to be executed in 1988. But Mr. Jordan then fell through the…

Idaho law empowers state courts to review and block certain government actions, such as those imposed without notice or public input, as well as policy changes that are “arbitrary, capricious, or an abuse of discretion.” However, a bill signed March 31 by Gov. Brad Little (R) exempts execution procedures from these oversight requirements. If the prison director decides to alter the execution protocol, death-sentenced prisoners will only be able to challenge those changes on constitutional…

Texas prosecutors sent Rodney Reed to death row for the 1996 murder of Stacey Stites, whom they argued was strangled with her own leather belt. Yet for over a decade, state officials have fought Mr. Reed’s requests to test that belt for the killer’s DNA. In 2023, the United States Supreme Court ruled that Mr. Reed’s lawsuit seeking the test was timely, and last year it struck down Texas’ attempts to block DNA testing in two other capital cases. However, on March 23, the Court refused to hear…