DPI Podcast 12:01 The Death Penalty in Context: Experts Discuss New DPI Report on Veterans and the Death Penalty

In the November 2025 episode of 12:01: The Death Penalty in Context, DPI’s Managing Director Anne Holsinger speaks with Captain Art Cody, Dr. Steven Xenakis, and DPI Staff Attorney Leah Roemer about DPI’s new report, Forgotten Service, Lasting Wounds: Military Veterans and the Death Penalty. Their con­ver­sa­tion cov­ers the legal and sci­en­tif­ic rea­sons behind the over­rep­re­sen­ta­tion of vet­er­ans on death row. Captain Cody, a retired U.S. Naval offi­cer, cur­rent­ly serves as Director of the Center for Veteran Criminal Advocacy. Dr. Xenakis, a retired U.S. Army Brigadier General and psy­chi­a­trist, works exten­sive­ly with youth and adults and is a lead­ing advo­cate for improv­ing men­tal health care for vet­er­ans. Both bring exten­sive expe­ri­ence and a long-stand­ing com­mit­ment to reform with­in the mil­i­tary and civil­ian jus­tice sys­tems. Ms. Roemer, the lead author of DPI’s new report Forgotten Service, Lasting Wounds, describes how the legal sys­tem treats vet­er­ans sen­tenced to death and under­scores the role of mil­i­tary ser­vice, trau­ma, and inad­e­quate treat­ment in shap­ing case out­comes. As part of this report, DPI has pro­duced the first com­pre­hen­sive list of vet­er­ans sen­tenced to death in the mod­ern era of the death penalty. 

Ms. Roemer explains that more than 800 vet­er­ans have been sen­tenced to death in the mod­ern era, with 226 exe­cut­ed — rough­ly 14% of all exe­cu­tions dur­ing this peri­od. About 200 vet­er­ans remain on death row, rep­re­sent­ing 10% of the death-sen­tenced pop­u­la­tion, despite vet­er­ans com­pris­ing only 6% of the U.S. pop­u­la­tion. She empha­sizes that ​“one in sev­en peo­ple exe­cut­ed once served our coun­try in the mil­i­tary.” While most vet­er­ans tran­si­tion peace­ful­ly to civil­ian life, research high­lights a trou­bling ​“bat­tle­field-to-prison pipeline,” as vet­er­ans dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly return home with seri­ous injuries, men­tal health con­di­tions, addic­tion, and cog­ni­tive changes that can con­tribute to lat­er involve­ment with the legal sys­tem. Ms. Roemer also high­lights geo­graph­ic dis­par­i­ties, not­ing that Florida has sen­tenced more vet­er­ans to death than any oth­er state. In 2025, Florida has already exe­cut­ed five vet­er­ans and plans to exe­cute two more, which would set a record for the high­est num­ber of vet­er­an exe­cu­tions by a state in a single year. 

Captain Cody shares that the find­ings of Forgotten Service, Lasting Wounds ​“val­i­dat­ed the belief that I long held that vet­er­ans, par­tic­u­lar­ly com­bat vet­er­ans, are a dis­tinct pop­u­la­tion among death-sen­tenced inmates and that they should be a dis­tinct pop­u­la­tion among peo­ple who come in con­tact with the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem.” He defends vet­er­ans’ expe­ri­ences, not­ing it ​“is not under­stood by the gen­er­al pub­lic, and tru­ly it’s a for­eign lan­guage with a for­eign expe­ri­ence.” Dr. Xenakis agrees that vet­er­ans con­sti­tute a ​“spe­cial pop­u­la­tion,” stress­ing the need to account for their unique expe­ri­ences and how those expe­ri­ences have shaped their lives. 

The speak­ers go on to explore the hur­dles vet­er­ans face when tran­si­tion­ing back to civil­ian life. Captain Cody explains it is often very dif­fi­cult because ​“when they attempt to re-enter civil­ian life, they are still deal­ing with the mem­o­ries and the trau­ma that don’t go away eas­i­ly.” Moreover, mil­i­tary cul­ture, often unfa­mil­iar to out­siders, teach­es sol­diers ​“to react deci­sive­ly and swift­ly, and com­mon­ly what we refer to as kinet­i­cal­ly, that is to take phys­i­cal action. We don’t teach, in boot camp, peace­ful con­flict res­o­lu­tion.” As a result, it is ​“not uncom­mon for our vets to react in a some­what aggres­sive man­ner, par­tic­u­lar­ly if they’re fresh off a com­bat tour and are suf­fer­ing from post-trau­mat­ic stress issues.” Dr. Xenakis observes that mil­i­tary ser­vice leaves an unde­ni­able impact. Many vet­er­ans con­se­quent­ly face sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges adjust­ing to civil­ian life: ​“They don’t know how to relate to fam­i­ly. They don’t know how to real­ly be good cit­i­zens in their com­mu­ni­ties. They don’t know how they take their expe­ri­ences and find work and education.” 

Shifting focus to the brain as vet­er­ans leave ser­vice, Dr. Xenakis pro­vides insight into how trau­ma and men­tal con­di­tions affect brain func­tion. He high­lights that indi­vid­u­als who enter the mil­i­tary are typ­i­cal­ly very young, with brains that are still devel­op­ing. This is sig­nif­i­cant because ​“the expe­ri­ences that they have and the expo­sure to the trau­ma can per­ma­nent­ly affect their brains in many, many dif­fer­ent ways.” Such trau­ma changes their sen­si­tiv­i­ty to stress, influ­ences their reac­tions, alters their fight-or-flight response, and affects their judg­ment. Ms. Roemer also notes how phys­i­cal injuries, rig­or­ous sched­ules, neu­ro­tox­in expo­sure, and trau­mat­ic com­bat have been found to alter a veteran’s brain chem­istry, which affects behav­ior and impulse control.

Captain Cody empha­sizes the need for a mil­i­tary expert on every defense team: ​“It’s absolute­ly essen­tial that you have some­one on the team that is famil­iar with the vet­er­an mil­i­tary expe­ri­ence to assist that team; you real­ly do need a mil­i­tary expert.” To most defense attor­neys, ser­vice is unfa­mil­iar to them, despite it being ​“a dom­i­nat­ing fac­tor in who [vet­er­ans] are.” Without this knowl­edge, crit­i­cal aspects of their ser­vice are omit­ted. Dr. Xenakis empha­sizes the impor­tance of clear­ly pre­sent­ing neu­ro­phys­i­o­log­ic func­tion­ing to juries and ensur­ing that the effects of mil­i­tary expe­ri­ence are ful­ly explained. He states that ​“we at least need to explain to the juries with as much [] black and white infor­ma­tion as we can about what’s hap­pened to these men and women, how the expe­ri­ences of com­bat has affect­ed them, and in fact, use more objec­tive infor­ma­tion to demon­strate what the effects are.” 

At the podcast’s con­clu­sion, Captain Cody high­lights a para­dox: while soci­ety sup­ports vet­er­ans, that sup­port often dis­ap­pears when they com­mit crimes. “[V]eterans are no longer vet­er­ans… It’s almost like they’ve giv­en up their sta­tus. And I think it’s real­ly impor­tant to under­stand that vet­er­ans who com­mit crimes are just as wor­thy.” Dr. Xenakis added, ​“We need to be able, as we’ve talked about here, to under­stand the expe­ri­ence these peo­ple have had… We as a coun­try, have asked these men and women to put their lives at risk. So, let’s take that on. And let’s be hon­est with our­selves, what that means for us in terms of what we have to do in return.”