Publications & Testimony

Eight mem­bers of the fed­er­al Bureau of Prisons (BOP) exe­cu­tion team and a reli­gious advi­sor have test­ed pos­i­tive for the coro­n­avirus after par­tic­i­pat­ing in the November 19 exe­cu­tion of Orlando Hall (pic­tured). The COVID-19 infec­tions, which fed­er­al author­i­ties had not pre­vi­ous­ly revealed, came to light in doc­u­ments pro­duced in a law­suit two pris­on­ers have filed to halt the remaining federal…

In the December 2020 episode of Discussions with DPIC, anes­the­si­ol­o­gist Dr. Joel Zivot from Emory University Hospital speaks with Death Penalty Information Center Executive Director Robert Dunham about his dis­cov­er­ies from the autop­sies of more than 200 exe­cut­ed pris­on­ers. Those autop­sies revealed the grue­some effects of exe­cu­tion by lethal injec­tion and shat­tered the pop­u­lar myth that lethal injec­tion is a humane and pain­less exe­cu­tion process. Zivot and Dunham also…

As the December 10, 2020 exe­cu­tion date of fed­er­al death-row pris­on­er Brandon Bernard (pic­tured with his fam­i­ly) approached, jurors and a for­mer pros­e­cu­tor in his case came for­ward say­ing that the teen offender’s life should be spared. Bernard, who was 18 years old at the time of the offense, became the youngest offend­er exe­cut­ed by the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment in at least 68…

Saying ​“our nation’s long exper­i­ment with the death penal­ty has failed,” a coali­tion of near­ly 100 crim­i­nal jus­tice offi­cials is call­ing on the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment to halt the five exe­cu­tions cur­rent­ly sched­uled for December 2020 and January 2021 and to end its use of the death…

Defendants of col­or and for­eign nation­als who are intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled are dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly like­ly to be sen­tenced to death, a Death Penalty Information Center analy­sis of cas­es involv­ing intel­lec­tu­al­ly disabled defendants…

New COVID-19 out­breaks on the nation’s death rows have killed pris­on­ers in Ohio and Missouri and sick­ened at least 11 men on Tennessee​’s death…

Saying that the state lacked the abil­i­ty to car­ry out a lethal injec­tion, the South Carolina Supreme Court has stayed the sched­uled December 4, 2020 exe­cu­tion of Richard Moore (pic­tured). With no state exe­cu­tions sched­uled for the remain­der of the year, the stay means that states will car­ry out few­er exe­cu­tions in 2020 than in any year since…

In two long-await­ed deci­sions that will alter the land­scape of Florida’s death row, the Florida Supreme Court has lim­it­ed the reach of a land­mark rul­ing that over­turned the state’s con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­hi­bi­tion against death sen­tences imposed after a non-unan­i­mous jury vote for death. The court’s January 2020 deci­sion in State v. Poole had raised the specter that the court might rescind orders that had over­turned the death sen­tences of more than 100 Florida death-row prisoners and…

The range of meth­ods avail­able to the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment to car­ry out exe­cu­tions could be expand­ed under a new Department of Justice reg­u­la­tion pub­lished on November 27,…