DPIC Podcasts
Items: 11 — 20
Discussions With DPIC

DPIC’s New Report on the Racial History of Oklahoma’s Death Penalty
Published: Oct 31, 2022
In the October 2022 episode of Discussions with DPIC, Death Penalty Information Center Deputy Director Ngozi Ndulue and Data Storyteller Tiana Herring discuss DPIC’s recently released report Deeply Rooted: How Racial History Informs Oklahoma’s Death Penalty. The report looks at the racial history, present, and future of Oklahoma’s death penalty. Ndulue and Herring explore Oklahoma’s unique history, the key findings of the report, its relationship to DPIC’s earlier work, and lessons from Oklahoma’s experience that are applicable nationwide.
Discussions With DPIC

Former Governor Brad Henry and Former U.S. Magistrate Judge Andy Lester, co-Chairs of the Oklahoma Death Penalty Review Commission, Call for Halt to Executions
Published: Aug 24, 2022
Former Oklahoma Governor Brad Henry and former U.S. Magistrate Judge Andy Lester, who co-chaired the bipartisan Oklahoma Death Penalty Review Commission, join DPIC executive director Robert Dunham in the August 2022 Discussions With DPIC podcast. Governor Henry, a Democrat, and Judge Lester, a Republican, discuss the findings of the commission’s review that led them to call for a halt to the state’s planned executions of 25 prisoners, at least until significant reforms have been adopted.
Discussions With DPIC

The DPIC Death Penalty Census
Published: Jul 20, 2022
In the July 2022 episode of Discussions with DPIC, Death Penalty Information Center Executive Director Robert Dunham and 2021 – 2022 DPIC Data Fellow Aimee Breaux discuss the making of DPIC’s groundbreaking Death Penalty Census database and some of its key findings. The project, the culmination of nearly five years of work, tracks the demographics and status of more than 9,700 death sentences imposed across the U.S. since the Supreme Court struck down existing death penalty statutes in 1972. The data, Dunham says, reveal “a system that is rife with error, filled…
Discussions With DPIC

35 Years After McCleskey v. Kemp, Prof. Alexis Hoag Discusses the Decision’s Legacy
Published: May 11, 2022
In the May 2022 episode of Discussions With DPIC, Professor Alexis Hoag (pictured) of Brooklyn Law School joined DPIC Deputy Director Ngozi Ndulue for a wide-ranging conversation marking the 35th anniversary of McCleskey v. Kemp, a 1987 U.S. Supreme Court decision that rejected a constitutional challenge to the death penalty that showed strong statistical evidence of racial disparities in capital prosecutions and death sentences. Professor Hoag, formerly an attorney at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (“LDF”), describes the decision as “critically important to our understanding of the…
Discussions With DPIC

Prof. Meredith Rountree on What Influences Death Penalty Jurors’ Moral Decisionmaking
Published: Mar 31, 2022
In the March 2022 episode of Discussions With DPIC, Northwestern Pritzker School of Law Senior Lecturer Meredith Rountree speaks with Death Penalty Information Center Executive Director Robert Dunham about her study of the types of evidence that influence juror decision-making at the sentencing stage of capital cases. Rountree and her co-author Dr. Mary Rose of the University of Texas, reviewed and analyzed 176 verdict forms completed by juries in federal death penalty cases, focusing on three legally controversial areas of mitigating evidence that juries found to be important to their…
Discussions With DPIC

Rep. Renny Cushing on Empowering Crime Survivors and Repealing New Hampshire’s Death Penalty
Published: Mar 30, 2022
New Hampshire State Representative Renny Cushing passed away earlier this month. In memory of Cushing’s life and legacy, DPIC is reissuing the June 2019 podcast in which Cushing spoke with DPIC Executive Director Robert Dunham. Cushing described the life-altering experience of having a close family member murdered and his journey from being a murder-family survivor to spearheading New Hampshire’s repeal of the death penalty.
Discussions With DPIC

Julius Jones’ Long Road On and Off Oklahoma’s Death Row, and What Comes Next in His Case
Published: Feb 25, 2022
In the February 2022 episode of Discussions with DPIC, federal public defender, Amanda Bass (pictured, right) and Justice for Julius advocate Cece Jones-Davis (pictured, left) speak with Death Penalty Information Center Managing Director Anne Holsinger about the questionable conviction and near execution of former Oklahoma death-row prisoner, Julius Jones. They discuss how incompetent representation and prosecutorial misconduct sent Jones to death row in Oklahoma County, how advocacy on his innocence and about racial bias in his case led to the commutation of his death sentence four hours before it was…
Discussions With DPIC

Contra Costa County, California District Attorney Diana Becton on Fair and Just Legal Reform and Ending the Death Penalty
Published: Jan 12, 2022
In the January 2022 episode of Discussions with DPIC, Contra Costa County, California District Attorney Diana Becton, speaks with Death Penalty Information Center Executive Director Robert Dunham about the rise in reform prosecutors across the country, the inherent flaws in capital punishment that leads her to work alongside other reform prosecutors to end the death penalty, and her efforts as district attorney to bring fairness and equity to the criminal legal system.
Discussions With DPIC

Republican State Representative Jean Schmidt on Her Efforts to Abolish the Death Penalty in Ohio
Published: Dec 02, 2021
In the December 2021 episode of Discussions with DPIC, Death Penalty Information Center Deputy Director Ngozi Ndulue interviews State Representative Jean Schmidt about her work as a primary sponsor of a bill in the Ohio House of Representatives that would abolish capital punishment in the state. A long-time Republican elected official, Rep. Schmidt also served in the U.S. House of Representatives for ten years. She avidly supported the death penalty early in her career but now is an advocate of criminal justice reform. Ndulue and Schmidt discuss the Republican party’s…
Discussions With DPIC

Daniel Chen of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty Discusses Freedom of Religion in the Execution Chamber
Published: Nov 08, 2021
In the November 2021 episode of Discussions with DPIC, Daniel Chen, counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, speaks with DPIC Executive Director Robert Dunham about the Supreme Court case Ramirez v. Collier and death-row prisoners’ rights to religious freedom. John Ramirez has challenged Texas’ restrictions on audible prayer and physical touch by his spiritual advisor during his execution. Allowing such pastoral comfort in the execution chamber, Chen says, is about “fundamental human dignity.”