Publications & Testimony

From July 14, 2020 through January 16, 2021, the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment exe­cut­ed thir­teen pris­on­ers. It was the most con­sec­u­tive exe­cu­tions by a sin­gle juris­dic­tion since the U.S. death penal­ty resumed in the 1970s and the longest peri­od of time in which an exe­cu­tion spree by any gov­ern­ment went unabat­ed while no oth­er jurisdiction executed…

Developments in three fed­er­al cap­i­tal cas­es at the tran­si­tion between pres­i­den­tial admin­is­tra­tions illus­trate the choic­es that the new Biden Department of Justice will face in for­mu­lat­ing its pol­i­cy on the fed­er­al death penal­ty. The cas­es, each at a crit­i­cal turn­ing point in deter­min­ing whether to move for­ward in a poten­tial­ly cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tion, will shed light on the strength of the DOJ leadership’s com­mit­ment to imple­ment­ing the president’s pledge to end the federal death…

Former light­weight and junior wel­ter­weight box­ing con­tender Anthony Fletcher (pic­tured) has been released from prison, 28 years after he was wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed of first-degree mur­der and sent to Pennsylvania​’s death row by false medical…

A South Dakota state sen­a­tor who pre­vi­ous­ly served as a pros­e­cu­tor and a state court judge has intro­duced a bill to lim­it the breadth of the state’s death penal­ty statute. Senate Bill 98, intro­duced by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arthur Rusch (R – Clay, pic­tured) on January 25, 2021, would restrict cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment to a sin­gle aggra­vat­ing cir­cum­stance, pre­med­i­tat­ed mur­ders in which a defen­dant killed a police offi­cer, cor­rec­tions offi­cer, or…

As the Virginia General Assembly con­sid­ers leg­is­la­tion to abol­ish the death penal­ty, oppo­nents of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment gath­ered at lynch­ing sites across the state to empha­size the his­tor­i­cal link between lynch­ings and exe­cu­tions. Groups in Alexandria, Danville, Norfolk, Richmond, and Roanoke recalled his­tor­i­cal injus­tices, read­ing the names and sto­ries of lynch­ing vic­tims, and called for an end to capital…

Lawyers for Tennessee death-row pris­on­er Pervis Payne say DNA test­ing in his 30-year-old case points to an ​“unknown male” and excludes Payne as the per­son who stabbed to death Charisse Christopher and her 2‑year-old daugh­ter, Lacie, and seri­ous­ly wound­ed her 3‑year-old son,…

In February 1951, Virginia exe­cut­ed sev­en Black men on charges they had raped a white woman two years ear­li­er. The ​“Martinsville 7” — Francis DeSales Grayson, Frank Hairston Jr., Howard Hairston, James Luther Hairston, Joe Henry Hampton, Booker T. Millner, and John Clabon Taylor — were inter­ro­gat­ed by police…

Democratic mem­bers of the U.S. House and Senate have called on incom­ing President Joe Biden (pic­tured) to take quick action on his cam­paign pledge to end the fed­er­al death penal­ty. Legislators intro­duced three bills to abol­ish the fed­er­al death penal­ty and urged the President to issue exec­u­tive orders to halt fed­er­al exe­cu­tions and com­mute the death sen­tences of those on federal death…

The notion that death sen­tences and exe­cu­tions pro­vide clo­sure to vic­tims’ fam­i­lies is a myth, says Susan A. Bandes, Centennial Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus at DePaul University law school. In a January 8 com­men­tary in The Crime Report, Bandes, a pio­neer in the study of emo­tion and the law, takes on and debunks the idea that exe­cu­tions bring vic­tims’ family members…