Entries by Leah Roemer

When California Governor Gavin Newsom announced a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions in 2019, he said that the state’s​“death penal­ty sys­tem has been, by all mea­sures, a fail­ure.” He explained that the death penal­ty​“has dis­crim­i­nat­ed against defen­dants who are men­tal­ly ill, Black and brown, or can’t afford expen­sive legal representation…[while pro­vid­ing] no pub­lic safe­ty ben­e­fit or val­ue as a deter­rent.” In 2024, California courts agreed that exe­cu­tion was not the…

At Brenda Andrew’s 2004 tri­al in Oklahoma for the mur­der of her hus­band, the pros­e­cu­tor called wit­ness­es to tes­ti­fy about her​“provoca­tive” cloth­ing and her pre­vi­ous sex­u­al rela­tion­ships, and ques­tioned​“whether a good moth­er would dress or behave” the way she had. Jurors heard Ms. Andrew called a​“hoochie” and a​“slut pup­py.” In his clos­ing argu­ment, the pros­e­cu­tor opened a suit­case and showed the jury Ms. Andrew’s under­wear, ask­ing,​“The grieving widow…

When Marion Bowman was arrest­ed at age 20 for the mur­der of Kandee Martin, soci­ety did not con­sid­er him mature enough to drink alco­hol, rent a car, or enter a casi­no. Yet he was deemed old enough to be sen­tenced to death. Now 44, he has spent over half his life on South Carolina’s death row and is sched­uled for exe­cu­tion on January 31. ​“Retribution is not pro­por­tion­al if the law’s most severe penal­ty is imposed on one whose cul­pa­bil­i­ty or blame­wor­thi­ness is dimin­ished, to a substantial degree…

If Joseph Corcoran had been sen­tenced to death just a few miles to the east, across the bor­der in Ohio instead of in Fort Wayne, Indiana, it’s like­ly that a court would have barred his exe­cu­tion. Ohio law pre­vents a per­son with a seri­ous men­tal ill­ness (SMI) at the time of their crime, defined as schiz­o­phre­nia, schizoaf­fec­tive dis­or­der, bipo­lar dis­or­der, or delu­sion­al dis­or­der, from being put to death. Mr. Corcoran, who has a long his­to­ry of paranoid…

In March, Oklahoma offi­cials asked the state’s high court to increase the time between exe­cu­tions from 60 to 90 days, cit­ing the​“last­ing trau­ma” and​“psy­cho­log­i­cal toll” of exe­cu­tions on cor­rec­tions offi­cers. But Judge Gary Lumpkin dis­missed these con­cerns, telling offi­cials that prison staff need­ed to​“suck it up” and​“man up.” A few weeks lat­er, Brian Dorsey was exe­cut­ed in Missouri after the gov­er­nor ignored the pleas of an unprece­dent­ed 72 corrections…

On December 18, Joseph Corcoran is sched­uled to be the first per­son exe­cut­ed by Indiana offi­cials in 15 years. For the first time, the state will use a sin­gle drug, pen­to­bar­bi­tal, which comes from an unknown source and has been known to cause pris­on­ers​“excru­ci­at­ing” pain dur­ing exe­cu­tions. But no media wit­ness­es will be present to relay what hap­pens to the pub­lic. Indiana is an out­lier in its pol­i­cy deci­sion to com­plete­ly exclude the press from witnessing…

Thomas Creech and…

Derrick Dearman first told his moth­er that he want­ed to die when he was four years old. On October 17, he was exe­cut­ed by the state of Alabama, becom­ing the 20^th per­son exe­cut­ed in the United States this year and the 165^th in the mod­ern era to​“vol­un­teer” for death. A new analy­sis by the Death Penalty Information Center shows that despite falling rates of death sen­tences, exe­cu­tions, and pub­lic sup­port for the death penal­ty, the num­ber of death-sentenced prisoners…

Professor…