Publications & Testimony

Twenty-eight years after Philadelphia pros­e­cu­tors first sought to take his life for the mur­der of four-year-old Barbara Jean Horn, Walter Ogrod (pic­tured, sec­ond from right, with mem­bers of his defense team) has been exon­er­at­ed from Pennsylvania​’s death…

The North Carolina Supreme Court has struck down the state legislature’s attempt­ed retroac­tive repeal of the state’s Racial Justice Act (RJA), restor­ing the rights of approx­i­mate­ly 140 death-row pris­on­ers to seek redress of death sen­tences that they had claimed were sub­stan­tial­ly affect­ed by racial…

In three decades of pro­vid­ing infor­ma­tion and analy­sis on the death penal­ty, DPIC has cov­ered thou­sands of cas­es, stud­ies, and schol­ar­ly arti­cles on the admin­is­tra­tion of the death penal­ty in the United States. We know that racial injus­tice has been a core prob­lem in the admin­is­tra­tion of the death penal­ty and that it per­sists to the present day. The his­to­ry of the death penal­ty is inter­twined with that of vig­i­lante and law enforce­ment vio­lence against African Americans. With this knowledge,…

NEWS (6/​5/​20) — Ohio: Governor Mike DeWine (pic­tured) issued reprieves to the last three Ohio death-row pris­on­ers fac­ing exe­cu­tions dates in 2020, ensur­ing that the state will not car­ry out any exe­cu­tions this year. A news release announc­ing the action said the reprieves were grant­ed ​“due to ongo­ing prob­lems involv­ing the will­ing­ness of phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal sup­pli­ers to pro­vide drugs to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (DRC), pur­suant to DRC pro­to­col, without…

Texas death-row pris­on­er Ruben Gutierrez (pic­tured) has asked the Texas state courts to stay his exe­cu­tion because of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic as fed­er­al lit­i­ga­tion con­tin­ues on his efforts to obtain DNA test­ing and to require Texas to per­mit him to have a chap­lain present in the exe­cu­tion cham­ber if his execution…

U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker on June 1, 2020 denied a chal­lenge brought by Arkansas death-row pris­on­ers to the use of the con­tro­ver­sial drug mida­zo­lam in car­ry­ing out exe­cu­tions. The rul­ing fol­lowed a two-week hear­ing on the issue held in May 2019. Lawyers for the pris­on­ers had argued that mida­zo­lam does not ade­quate­ly anes­thetize a pris­on­er dur­ing an exe­cu­tion before the sec­ond and third drugs, a par­a­lyt­ic drug and a drug that stops the heart, are admin­is­tered. An…

Atlanta is poised to become the lat­est in a grow­ing num­ber of U.S. cities in which pros­e­cu­tors have pledged not to seek the death penal­ty or to use it more…

State appeal courts in Nevada and Pennsylvania have barred the retri­al of two for­mer death-row pris­on­ers as a result of pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct, paving the way for their…

A Florida judge has denied death-row pris­on­er James Dailey​’s motion for a new tri­al on May 29, 2020, rul­ing that no new admis­si­ble evi­dence sup­port­ed Dailey’s claim of inno­cence. Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge Pat Siracusa’s deci­sion came just one day after jour­nal­ist Pamela Colloff won a National Magazine Award for her inves­ti­ga­tion of a noto­ri­ous jail­house infor­mant who pro­vid­ed key tes­ti­mo­ny against…