Publications & Testimony

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…

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…

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…