Publications & Testimony

Oklahoma exe­cut­ed Phillip Hancock (pic­tured) on November 30, 2023, fol­low­ing Governor Kevin Stitt’s rejec­tion of the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board’s rec­om­men­da­tion that his sen­tence be f com­mut­ed to life with­out parole. The governor’s inde­ci­sion left Mr. Hancock wait­ing anx­ious­ly right up to the time of his sched­uled exe­cu­tion when the governor’s office told the prison war­den to pro­ceed. Mr. Hancock is the 123^rd per­son exe­cut­ed in Oklahoma since the rein­state­ment of the death penal­ty in 1976. His exe­cu­tion is also the fourth exe­cu­tion in Oklahoma this year and the…

Against a back­drop of high-pro­file inno­cence cas­es and the U.S. Supreme Court’s seem­ing indif­fer­ence to them, the 2023 Gallup poll found that more Americans now believe that the death penal­ty is admin­is­tered unfair­ly than fair­ly. Use of the death penal­ty remained geo­graph­i­cal­ly iso­lat­ed, with only five states car­ry­ing out exe­cu­tions and only sev­en impos­ing death sen­tences. For the ninth con­sec­u­tive year, few­er than 30 peo­ple were exe­cut­ed and few­er than 50 were sen­tenced to death. These find­ings head­line DPIC’s 2023 Year End Report, released on December 1.

Tomorrow, the Death Penalty Information Center will release a report that doc­u­ments how racial bias and vio­lence affect­ed the past use of the death penal­ty in Missouri and how that his­to­ry con­tin­ues to influ­ence the cur­rent admin­is­tra­tion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the state. Compromised Justice: How A Legacy of Racial Violence Informs Missouri’s Death Penalty Today, sched­uled for release on December 1, 2023, notes that his­tor­i­cal­ly and into the present day, Missouri’s death penal­ty has been applied dis­crim­i­na­to­ri­ly based on race. 

“Commission mem­bers unan­i­mous­ly rec­om­mend that the cur­rent mora­to­ri­um on the death penal­ty be extend­ed,” said a near­ly 300-page report pub­lished by the Oklahoma Death Penalty Review Commission in 2017. More than six years lat­er, almost none of the 45 rec­om­men­da­tions have been imple­ment­ed. Former U.S. Magistrate Judge Andy Lester, one of three co-chairs of the Commission, reit­er­at­ed the call for a mora­to­ri­um in a November 27, 2023 let­ter to the edi­tors of non​doc​.com. ​“Whether you sup­port cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment or oppose it, one thing is clear. Oklahoma’s sys­tem is so fun­da­men­tal­ly flawed…

In this month’s episode of Discussions with DPIC, Managing Director Anne Holsinger speaks with Sandra Babcock (pic­tured), Clinical Professor at Cornell Law School, Faculty Director, and founder of the Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide. Ms. Babcock’s clin­ic cur­rent­ly rep­re­sents death sen­tenced women in the United States, Malawi, and Tanzania and is focused on pro­vid­ing defense teams in reten­tion­ist coun­tries with train­ing and con­sul­ta­tion in order to pro­vide the best pos­si­ble legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion for indi­vid­u­als fac­ing sen­tences of death. The Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide also produces…

On November 20, Florida Circuit Judge Heidi Davis sen­tenced Joshua McClellan to life in prison after a non-unan­i­mous jury returned a rec­om­men­da­tion of death in September by a 10 – 2 vote. Judge Davis not­ed the mit­i­ga­tion evi­dence pre­sent­ed by Mr. McClellan’s defense, includ­ing men­tal health eval­u­a­tions and tes­ti­mo­ny regard­ing his trau­mat­ic upbring­ing, as an expla­na­tion for her deci­sion. Mr. McClellan was one of the first defen­dants to receive a non-unan­i­mous death rec­om­men­da­tion under a new law signed ear­li­er this year by Governor and pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Ron DeSantis, allow­ing death sen­tences when…

U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) released its lat­est report for the year 2021, con­firm­ing a con­tin­ued decrease in the num­ber of peo­ple on death rows in the United States.

The Louisiana Board of Pardons and Committee on Parole will con­sid­er at least two addi­tion­al appli­ca­tions for clemen­cy on November 27, fol­low­ing a tumul­tuous year in which near­ly all Louisiana death row pris­on­ers sought clemen­cy in response to out­go­ing Governor John Bel Edwards voic­ing his per­son­al oppo­si­tion to the death penal­ty. Under the Louisiana Constitution, Governor Edwards can­not grant clemen­cy with­out a rec­om­men­da­tion from the Board; he asked the Board to set hear­ings so that he could ful­fill his ​“author­i­ty and duty to con­sid­er these appli­ca­tions.” However, amidst oppo­si­tion from…

On November 13, 2023, offi­cials announced that the U.S. Army had over­turned the con­vic­tions of 110 Black sol­diers of the 3^rd Battalion, 24^th Infantry Regiment, who were charged with mutiny in con­nec­tion with the racial vio­lence that occurred dur­ing the 1917 Camp Logan rebel­lion. Nineteen Black sol­diers were hanged fol­low­ing the court-mar­tial rul­ing on December 11, 1917, which was the largest exe­cu­tion of mil­i­tary sol­diers in his­to­ry. In her state­ment, Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth stat­ed, “…these sol­diers were wrong­ly treat­ed because of their race and were not given…

Victims’ fam­i­lies, retired Judge James Brogan, and for­mer Department of Rehabilitation and Correction Director Gary Mohr have pub­licly expressed sup­port for leg­is­la­tion pend­ing in both the state Senate and House that would abol­ish the death penal­ty in Ohio.