Publications & Testimony

The Arizona Supreme Court has set an execution date of May 11 for Clarence Dixon, a death-row prisoner who is blind and has such severe mental illness that he was once judged legally insane. Dixon is a member of the Navajo Nation, which has long opposed the death penalty as inconsistent with its culture and values. “The state has had nearly a year to demonstrate that it will not be carrying out executions with expired drugs but has failed to do so,” Jennifer Moreno, one of Dixon’s attorneys…

In a move sharply criticized by rights advocates as a violation of international human rights law, Singapore has resumed executions for non-violent drug offenses. On March 30, 2022, the authoritarian city/state hanged Abdul Kahar bin Othman on charges of drug trafficking, its first execution since November 2019. The execution of the 68-year-old bin Othman may presage a spate of executions, human rights leaders feared, following the denial of appeals earlier in March of an intellectually…

Lawyers for three men on South Carolina’s death row have asked the state supreme court to defer setting execution dates until the courts resolve pending legal challenges to the state’s controversial execution methods. The request was filed in the South Carolina Supreme Court on March 21, 2022 on behalf of Brad Keith Sigmon, Freddie Eugene Owens, and Gary Dubose Terry, just days after South Carolina Department of Corrections officials announced they were prepared to perform executions by firing…

Texas’ oldest death-row prisoner, Carl Wayne Buntion (pictured), has filed a petition with the state Board of Pardons and Parole seeking commutation of his death sentence to life without parole. Buntion is currently scheduled to be executed on April 21, 2022. In a petition filed March 30, 2022, the 78-year-old Buntion’s lawyers asked the Board to recommend that Gov. Greg Abbott grant him clemency, arguing that his death sentence was imposed by a jury that falsely predicted he would pose a…

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…

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to review the case of an Arizona death-row prisoner whose sentence was upheld by the state’s appellate courts even though his trial judge unconstitutionally refused to inform the jury that he would be ineligible for parole if sentenced to life in prison. In an order issued March 28, 2022, the Court granted John Montenegro Cruz’s petition to hear his case, but limited its review to the question of whether the procedural rule applied by the Arizona courts to…

After more than a century of efforts by civil rights leaders to make lynching a federal crime, President Joe Biden on March 29, 2022 signed into law historic anti-lynching legislation. Flanked by the bill’s sponsors, Vice President Kamala Harris, and family members of the late Ida B. Wells and Emmett Till in a ceremony on the White House lawn, Biden signed the Emmett Till Antilynching Act (pictured), officially denominating lynching a federal hate crime. The law allows for crimes — such as…

Idaho Governor Brad Little on March 25, 2022, signed into law an execution secrecy bill that conceals from the public and the courts information on the producers and suppliers of drugs used in executions in the state. House Bill 658 became law less than three weeks after the measure failed on a 4 – 4 vote in the Senate Judiciary and Rules Committee. Under Idaho legislative rules, a bill that fails in a committee vote is normally dead for the remainder of the legislative session. However, in a…

The Kentucky State Senate has given final legislative approval to a bill that would make the Commonwealth the second U.S. state to bar the execution of people with serious mental illness. On March 25, 2022, the Republican-dominated body voted 25 – 9 to pass HB 269, a bill that prohibits the death penalty for defendants diagnosed with any of four specified mental health disorders. The measure overwhelmingly passed the House on February 9 by a vote of 76 – 19. If signed by Governor Andy Beshear, a…

Nearly 90 members of the Texas House of Representatives from across the ideological spectrum have issued a bipartisan call for the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and Governor Greg Abbott to grant clemency to death-row prisoner Melissa Lucio. In a news conference in the state capitol on March 24, 2022, State Rep. Jeff Leach (R‑Plano, pictured), co-chair of the House’s bipartisan Criminal Justice Reform Caucus, announced that 81 House members had signed a letter urging Governor Abbott and…