Publications & Testimony

The U.S. Supreme Court has overturned a federal appeals court decision that had reversed the death sentences imposed on Dzhokhar Tsarnaev for his role in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings that killed three people and injured more than 250 others. In a 6 – 3 decision authored by Justice Clarence Thomas and joined by all members of the Court’s conservative supermajority, the justices reinstated Tsarnaev’s death sentences and remanded the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit to…

The Tennessee Supreme Court has issued death warrants setting execution dates for three prisoners, bringing to five — the nation’s‑high — the number of executions pending in the state in 2022. On February 22, 2022, the court set execution dates of August 18 for Byron Black, October 6 for Gary Sutton, and December 8 for Donald Middlebrooks. The court had previously set execution dates of April 21 for Oscar Smith and June 9 for Harold Nichols. Black has presented evidence that he is ineligible…

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has stayed the March 8, 2022 execution of death-row prisoner Michael Gonzales (pictured, second from left, with his legal team) based on evidence that he may be ineligible for the death penalty because of intellectual disability and that prosecutors withheld favorable evidence from the defense at the time of trial. The appeals court’s order, issued March 3, 2022, halted what would have been the first execution in Texas in 2022. Gonzales filed a 169-page…

The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has affirmed a Nevada district court’s grant of a new trial to death-row prisoner Mark Rogers, blasting the state for providing him with inexperienced counsel who lacked the knowledge and resources to competently defend a capital trial. In a 2 – 1 decision issued on February 14, 2022, the appeals panel upheld a September 23, 2019 ruling by District Court Judge Gloria M. Navarro holding that the public defender assigned to represent Rogers…

Lawyers for Texas death-row prisoner Melissa Lucio (pictured) have moved to vacate her April 27, 2022 execution date and remove the judge and district attorney in her case because of conflicts of interest stemming from their employment of key members of Lucio’s original defense team. Lucio’s lead trial counsel, Peter Gilman, is now employed as an assistant district attorney in the Cameron County District Attorney’s office and Irma Gilman, who was counsel’s paralegal at the time of trial, is…

A new national poll has found that bipartisan majorities of Americans oppose seeking the death penalty against vulnerable groups of defendants who historically have been disproportionately subjected to its use. The poll, conducted by the Justice Research Group (JRG) November 3 to 5, 2021 and released February 17, 2022, found that Democrats, Republicans, and Independents by margins of more than 30 percentage points opposed the use of the death penalty against people with severe mental illness…

President Joe Biden has nominated federal appeals court judge Ketanji Brown Jackson (pictured) to serve as a U.S. Supreme Court justice, fulfilling his campaign pledge to select an African American woman for the Court. If confirmed, Jackson would be the first Black woman to serve on the nation’s highest court. Announcing Jackson’s nomination on February 25, 2022, President Biden said, “For too long, our government, our courts haven’t looked like America. I believe it’s time that we have a…

Two death-row prisoners who have long asserted their innocence, one in North Carolina and the other in Alabama, have died of cancer on their state’s death rows. Carl Moseley, who was diagnosed with stage 4 stomach cancer in June 2021, died on February 17, 2022, after spending 30 years on death row in North Carolina for the murders of two women last seen at a Forsythe County dance club and bar. He was 56 years old. Earlier in the day, his lawyer, Christine Mumma of the North Carolina Center on…

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…

Despite the absence of evidence that the death penalty protects police or promotes public safety, lawmakers in several states that have abolished capital punishment have introduced bills to reinstate capital punishment for the murders of police officers. An attempt during the 2022 legislative session in Virginia to reinstate the death penalty for killings of police officers failed in committee. The state abolished the death penalty in February 2021, and a bill to narrowly reinstate the state’s…