
DPIC Podcast: Discussions With DPIC
Missouri Attorney Discusses Winning Life Sentence in Federal Prison-Killing Case
Overview
Discussion around the death penalty has increasingly shifted away from a moral debate to a comparison of capital punishment and its viable alternatives. The choice today for prosecutors, jurors, legislators, and the courts is usually between the death penalty and a sentence of life without parole (LWOP). Some victims’ families prefer LWOP to the uncertainty of securing a death sentence and the likelihood of many years of appeals before an execution would occur. Many prosecutors have also concluded that the high costs associated with capital cases are unaffordable, especially with the high rate of reversals. As the availability and use of LWOP has expanded, the number of death sentences has declined dramatically.
States have also looked beyond punishment to alternative ways of reducing violent crime, including community policing, the introduction of crime-fighting technology, and restorative justice efforts. In some jurisdictions, resources not expended in seeking the death penalty could be used to support these initiatives.
At Issue
Many prosecutors are reluctant to eliminate the death penalty as an option because they see it as a bargaining chip that results in capital defendants pleading guilty in exchange for taking the death penalty off the table. Commentators have noted that the use of the death penalty as a threat is concerning on both ethical and constitutional grounds.
Some opponents of capital punishment also characterize the use of life-without-parole sentences as just another kind of death sentence and note its expanded use even in non-capital cases contributed to the current problem of mass incarceration. According to a 2021 report from The Sentencing Project, the number of people serving sentences of life without parole has increased 66% since 2003; one out of seven incarcerated persons is serving a sentence of either LWOP, life with parole, or a sentence of 50 years or more. Aligning with larger racial disparities in prison sentencing, there is a disproportionate number of Black people serving LWOP sentences, according to 2020 data from the Prison Policy Initiative. The U.S. continues to have the world’s highest prison population per capita, with 629 people per 100,000 in prison, according to Penal Reform International’s 2022 Global Prison Trends. On the other hand, LWOP has been available as an option in every state that has abolished the death penalty in recent years, and some defense lawyers acknowledge that without LWOP many of their clients would be in danger of receiving death sentences.
What DPIC Offers
Recent opinion polls note the public’s view of using the death penalty vs. alternative sentences, and DPIC has collected the results of those surveys. DPIC also provides information on state legislative efforts to adopt LWOP and examines when and how LWOP results in cases where juries cannot agree on a death sentence.
News & Developments
News
Mar 21, 2023
California to Close San Quentin’s Death Row as Part of a Broader Prison Reform

Death-sentenced prisoners in California will be moved out of San Quentin State Prison (pictured) and placed in other maximum security facilities, as part of a broad plan announced by Governor Gavin Newsom on March 17, 2023. The governor seeks to “transform” the state’s oldest prison into “a one-of-a-kind facility focused on improving public safety through rehabilitation and education.” The state launched a pilot program in 2020 allowing some death-row prisoners to voluntarily move to other state prisons. Under that program, more than 100 death-row prisoners have already been transferred out…
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Aug 21, 2023
Brain Scans of Tennessee Man Who Admits to Killing Eight Convince Prosecutors to Drop Death Penalty
On August 16, 2023, Michael Cummins, who was facing the death penalty for the 2019 killings of eight individuals in rural Tennessee, pled guilty to all eight counts of first-degree murder in exchange for life in prison without parole. Sumner County District Attorney Ray Whitley told the press that he had reversed his decision to seek a death sentence and agreed to the plea based on new evidence regarding Mr. Cummins’ mental health. That evidence included Mr. Cummins’ brain scans, which showed “significant problems” and impairment of brain activity. DA…
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Jul 31, 2023
RESOURCE HIGHLIGHT: New Restorative Justice Webpage
The Death Penalty Information Center has created a webpage dedicated to restorative justice, a sentencing alternative in criminal cases, including limited use in death penalty cases. This resource highlights the foundations of restorative justice, common approaches, recent studies related to the practice, and examples of its use.
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Oct 13, 2022
Non-Unanimous Florida Jury Sentences Nikolas Cruz to Life Without Parole for Parkland School Shootings
A non-unanimous Florida jury has returned a verdict of life without parole for Nikolas Cruz, the teen offender convicted of killing 17 people in the February 14, 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School (pictured) in Parkland, Florida. The October 13, 2022 verdict, in which three jurors voted to spare Cruz’s life, concluded a six-month sentencing trial. Florida law, like that of nearly every death-penalty state, requires a unanimous jury verdict before a death sentence may be imposed.
Read MoreNews
Sep 19, 2022
Texas Prosecutors Drop Death Penalty Against African American Man Held Eight Years Without Trial in Death of White Police Officer During Botched No-Knock Raid
Bell County prosecutors have dropped their efforts to impose the death penalty on Marvin Guy (pictured), an African American man who has been held eight years without trial in connection with the death of a white police officer during a botched no-knock raid in Killeen, Texas in May 2014.
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Aug 30, 2022
Mother of Murdered Journalist Calls Life Sentence for ISIS Captors ‘A Huge Victory,’ Better than the Death Penalty
On the eighth anniversary of the August 19, 2014 murder of kidnapped journalist James Foley, a U.S. federal district court in Virginia sentenced his killer, Islamic State militant El Shafee Elsheikh, to eight life sentences in prison. His mother, Diane Foley (pictured), a leading advocate for Americans held hostage abroad, hailed the life sentence as “a huge victory” and “a very important deterrent.”
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May 26, 2022
Judge Rejects Missouri’s First Jury Recommendation of Death in Nine Years, Says Mitigating Evidence Requires Life Sentence for Marvin Rice
A Missouri judge has rejected the state’s first jury recommendation for a death sentence in nine years, and has instead re-sentenced former death-row prisoner Marvin D. Rice (pictured) to life without parole.
Read MoreNews
Mar 08, 2022
Nearly Six Years After Supreme Court Granted Him a New Trial, Timothy Foster Resentenced to Life
Timothy Foster, whose conviction and death sentence were overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2016 because Georgia prosecutors discriminatorily struck Black jurors from serving in his case, has been resentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Read MoreCapital Case Development
Dec 12, 2021
After Second Non-Unanimous Jury Verdict, Paul Durousseau Re-Sentenced to Life in Prison in Florida
Florida death-row prisoner Paul Durousseau was re-sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole December 10, 2021, when a second capital sentencing jury reached a non-unanimous sentencing verdict.
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Nov 23, 2021
California Penal Code Committee Recommends Repealing State’s Death Penalty
The Committee on Revision of the Penal Code, created by the California state legislature to review the state’s criminal laws, has issued a report unanimously recommending that the state repeal its death penalty. The six-member committee’s 39-page Death Penalty Report, released November 17, 2021, also offers intermediate recommendations for reducing the size of California’s nearly 700-person death row — the largest of any state in the country.
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Oct 07, 2021
Report: More Women Serving Extreme Sentences in the United States
The number of women serving extreme sentences in the United States has increased sharply in the last decade, a September 2021 report by a collaborative of criminal law reform organizations has found.
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