Entries by Tiana Herring

Henderson Hill has ded­i­cat­ed his career to plac­ing race and the death penal­ty on tri­al. This month, the Death Penalty Information Center cel­e­brates Black History Month by rec­og­niz­ing Mr. Hill’s ongo­ing con­tri­bu­tions to the modern death…

When Ernest Dykes was brought to tri­al on death penal­ty charges in Alameda County, California in the mid-1990s, it was rea­son­ably expect­ed that pros­e­cu­tors and defense attor­neys alike would work hard to shape the jury to their ben­e­fit. What Mr. Dykes (who is Black) didn’t know until recent­ly, how­ev­er, was just how far the pros­e­cu­tion would go to curate…

On January 9, 2025, the U.S. Department of Justice released its Review and Evaluation of the Tulsa Race Massacre of May 31-June 1, 1921. The depart­ment char­ac­ter­ized the report as​“the fed­er­al government’s first thor­ough reck­on­ing” designed to acknowl­edge, illu­mi­nate, and pre­serve for his­to­ry the​“hor­ri­ble ordeals of the massacre’s vic­tims” even if they found no legal avenue for pros­e­cu­tion of the crimes committed over…

On Thursday, the Death Penalty Information Center (“DPI”) released a new report detail­ing the trou­bling racial his­to­ry of the fed­er­al death penal­ty. Fool’s Gold: How the Federal Death Penalty Has Perpetuated Racially Discriminatory Practices Throughout History doc­u­ments how racial dis­crim­i­na­tion has been a through­line in the appli­ca­tion of the fed­er­al death penal­ty since the 1800s. The report explains that, despite often being…