Publications & Testimony

On March 12, 2026, a diverse group of voic­es filed ami­cus curi­ae briefs in sup­port of Charles Flores (pic­tured), a Texas death-sen­­tenced pris­on­er, urg­ing the U.S. Supreme Court to review his case. Mr. Flores has spent more than 25 years on death row for a mur­der he main­tains he did not com­mit. His con­vic­tion relied on the tes­ti­mo­ny of a neigh­bor who iden­ti­fied him — for the first time, at tri­al — only after being hyp­no­tized by police. The briefs were filed by a…

In the March 2026 episode of 12:01: The Death Penalty in Context, DPI Managing Director Anne Holsinger speaks with Elizabeth Vartkessian (pic­tured), the exec­u­tive direc­tor of Advancing Real Change (ARC), a nation­al non-prof­it that works to pro­vide mit­i­ga­tion inves­ti­ga­tion ser­vices and train­ing that ensure the full life his­to­ries of indi­vid­u­als fac­ing extreme sen­tences are pre­sent­ed to judges and juries. Ms. Vartkessian is a mit­i­ga­tion spe­cial­ist who has spent…

On March 5, 2026, Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Christopher McDowell​“for­mal­ly vin­di­cat­ed” death-sen­­tenced exoneree Derrick Jamison, allow­ing him to seek mon­e­tary com­pen­sa­tion from the state for his wrong­ful incar­cer­a­tion 21 years after pros­e­cu­tors dropped charges. Mr. Jamison, who was sched­uled for exe­cu­tion six times while impris­oned, filed a law­suit seek­ing a for­mal dec­la­ra­tion of wrong­ful impris­on­ment in 2024. With this for­mal dec­la­ra­tion, he can…

On March 2, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review Alabama’s appeal of a rul­ing by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit that reversed and remand­ed Michael Sockwell’s case on the grounds that the tri­al pros­e­cu­tor vio­lat­ed his con­sti­tu­tion­al rights by inten­tion­al­ly remov­ing Black jurors. The Court’s denial of review clears a path for Mr. Sockwell to receive a new tri­al, some 36 years after a judge first sen­tenced him to death. A November 2025 federal…

A March 9, 2026, com­pe­ten­cy hear­ing for Andre Thomas, a death-sen­­tenced pris­on­er in Texas, has been post­poned to an unspec­i­fied date because of con­cerns that Mr. Thomas is too men­tal­ly ill to be trans­port­ed to his com­pe­ten­cy hear­ing and he could not be re-exam­­ined by the State’s expert. Mr. Thomas was sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed in April 2023; how­ev­er, his exe­cu­tion date was with­drawn in March 2023, cit­ing con­cerns with his severe men­tal ill­ness (SMI) and…