Publications & Testimony

In his first inter­view since his September 24, 2020 exon­er­a­tion, for­mer Mississippi death-row pris­on­er Curtis Flowers (pic­tured) spoke with In the Dark pod­cast host and lead reporter Madeleine Baran about his 24-year jour­ney to free­dom after hav­ing being framed, tried six times, sent to death row and final­ly freed for a mur­der every­one involved knew full well he had…

The fed­er­al gov­ern­ment intends to con­tin­ue its unprece­dent­ed exe­cu­tion spree into December, sched­ul­ing the exe­cu­tions of the first woman and the youngest offend­er put to death by fed­er­al author­i­ties in near­ly sev­en decades. In a Friday evening announce­ment, the U.S. Department of Justice announced on October 16, 2020 that it had set the exe­cu­tion of Lisa Montgomery (pic­tured) for December 8 and Brandon Bernard…

NEWS (10/​16/​20) — Texas: A divid­ed Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) has upheld Kousol Chanthakoummane’s con­vic­tion and death sen­tence, which he argued had been obtained with junk bite mark tes­ti­mo­ny, hyp­no­tized wit­ness­es, and questionable…

A divid­ed Ohio Supreme Court has agreed to hear the appeals of two death-row pris­on­ers who are chal­leng­ing the legal­i­ty of the state’s exe­cu­tion pro­to­col. By votes of 4 – 3, the court on October 13, 2020 accept­ed for review appeals by Cleveland Jackson (pic­tured) and James O’Neal assert­ing that Ohio’s exe­cu­tion pro­to­col is invalid because the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (ODRC) adopt­ed it in violation…

In the October 2020 episode of Discussions with DPIC, for­mer Illinois Governor George Ryan speaks with Death Penalty Information Center Executive Director Robert Dunham about the events that per­suad­ed him to com­mute the death sen­tences of all 167 death-row pris­on­ers in Illinois in 2003. Ryan and Dunham delve into the Governor’s jour­ney from death-penal­­ty sup­port­er as an Illinois state leg­is­la­tor to death-penal­­ty oppo­nent as Illinois gov­er­nor, and…

A fed­er­al dis­trict court judge has issued an order mov­ing clos­er to tri­al a law­suit filed against a Utah coun­ty for the alleged retal­ia­to­ry fir­ing of a lawyer who had pub­licly crit­i­cized the coun­ty for refus­ing to ade­quate­ly fund his client’s death-penalty…

Federal pros­e­cu­tors have filed a peti­tion in the U.S. Supreme Court ask­ing the Court to review a fed­er­al appeals court rul­ing that over­turned the death sen­tence imposed on Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (pic­tured) in the 2013 Boston…

A recent U.S. Supreme Court deci­sion that affirmed the sov­er­eign­ty of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation over trib­al lands that span much of the east­ern half of Oklahoma con­tin­ues to rever­ber­ate through the state’s crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem as pris­on­ers sen­tenced for mur­ders com­mit­ted by or against Native Americans on trib­al lands chal­lenge the state’s author­i­ty to have…

NEWS (10/​5/​20) — Washington, D.C.: The 2020 – 2021 U.S. Supreme Court term opened on October 5 with the Court declin­ing to review chal­lenges to more than 30 death-penalty court…

The U.S. Senate is prepar­ing to move for­ward on October 12, 2020 with con­fir­ma­tion hear­ings on the con­tro­ver­sial nom­i­na­tion of con­ser­v­a­tive fed­er­al appeals judge Amy Coney Barrett to fill the Supreme Court vacan­cy caused by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. If con­firmed, Judge Barrett would shift the cen­ter of the Court far­ther to the right, solid­i­fy­ing the hold of a con­ser­v­a­tive major­i­ty that has become increas­ing­ly hos­tile to constitutional…