Publications & Testimony

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…

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…

NEWS (1/​13 – 16/​21) — Federal: The fed­er­al gov­ern­ment has exe­cut­ed Lisa Montgomery, Corey Johnson, and Dustin Higgs. The U.S. Supreme Court and the fed­er­al cir­cuit courts of appeals col­lec­tive­ly vacat­ed 17 sep­a­rate pre­lim­i­nary injunc­tions or stays of exe­cu­tion on the way to per­mit­ting 13 exe­cu­tions in a six-month peri­od. The U.S. Supreme Court grant­ed every appli­ca­tion by fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors to vacate injunc­tions or stays of execution…

An his­tor­i­cal­ly aber­rant six-month fed­er­al exe­cu­tion spree came to a close after mid­night on January 16, 2021 when an African-American man who was sched­uled to die on the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.​’s birth­day was put to death by pri­vate exe­cu­tion­ers hired in a secret…

On Martin Luther King Day, DPIC looks at the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King’s views on…

Legislators in the Virginia House and Senate are poised to attempt a repeal of its cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment statute, as Governor Ralph Northam (pic­tured) announced that he would spon­sor a bill to end the commonwealth’s…

For the sec­ond time in less than five weeks, the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment has exe­cut­ed a death-row pris­on­er who like­ly was intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled, with­out afford­ing him judi­cial review to deter­mine his eli­gi­bil­i­ty for the death penal­ty. Corey Johnson (pic­tured) was pro­nounced dead from lethal injec­tion at 11:34 p.m. on January 14, 2021, the 12^th fed­er­al pris­on­er exe­cut­ed in six months and the fifth in the tran­si­tion peri­od between Donald Trump’s…

After a series of rul­ings by the United States Supreme Court sum­mar­i­ly vacat­ed two stays of exe­cu­tion and denied attempts to rein­state two oth­ers, the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment exe­cut­ed death row pris­on­er Lisa Montgomery (pic­tured) on January 13, 2021. Montgomery, the only woman on fed­er­al death row, was the first woman exe­cut­ed by the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment in more than 67 years, the first per­son exe­cut­ed in the U.S. in 2021, and the 11^th…

Eddie Lee Howard, Jr., con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death based on the false foren­sic tes­ti­mo­ny of a since dis­graced pros­e­cu­tion expert wit­ness, has been exon­er­at­ed after near­ly 26 years on Mississippi​’s death row. He is the 174^th for­mer death-row pris­on­er exon­er­at­ed in the U.S. since 1973 and the sixth…

Ohio has banned the death penal­ty for defen­dants who were severe­ly men­tal­ly ill at the time of the offense. On January 9, 2021, Governor Mike DeWine (pic­tured) signed into law House Bill 136, which pro­hibits impos­ing the death penal­ty on or car­ry­ing it out against indi­vid­u­als whose severe men­tal ill­ness at the time of the offense sig­nif­i­cant­ly impaired their judg­ment, capac­i­ty, or abil­i­ty to appre­ci­ate the nature of…