Publications & Testimony

Seven months into 2021, executions in the United States are near historic lows. As of the end of July, only the former federal administration and the state of Texas had carried out any executions, and the five prisoners put to death placed the country on pace for the fewest executions since five states carried out a total of five executions in 1983. The three federal executions carried out in the waning days of the Trump administration ended an historically aberrant six months and two days in…

The Nevada Press Association has filed a federal lawsuit against Nevada state officials and the Nevada Department of Corrections challenging limitations the state’s execution protocol places on the media’s ability to witness and report on executions. In a complaint filed in the United States District Court for the District of Nevada on July 23, 2021, the ACLU of Nevada, representing the press association, argued that the state’s execution protocol violates the media and the public’s First…

When Dennis Perry stood with his defense team on the steps of the Brunswick, Georgia courthouse (pictured) after a trial judge dismissed all charges against him, he was a free man, exonerated of the racially motivated murders of a deacon and his wife in a local Black church in 1985. His case was one of at least four death-penalty prosecutions involving misconduct by Brunswick Judicial Circuit Assistant District Attorney John B. Johnson III. And it was the latest of more than 30 exonerations…

A federal appeals court has upheld a lower court’s decision granting a new trial to a Pennsylvania death-row prisoner whose retained lawyer was prevented from representing him at trial. In a unanimous decision issued on July 20, 2021, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled that Samuel Randolph’s right to representation by counsel of choice was violated when the trial court refused to grant even a three-hour continuance to permit his chosen lawyer to…

In the July 2021 episode of Discussions with DPIC, DPIC Executive Director Robert Dunham talks with Marc Bookman, the co-founder and Executive Director of the Atlantic Center for Capital Representation (ACCR), about his critically acclaimed new book, A Descending Spiral: Exposing the Death Penalty in 12 Essays. In their discussion, Bookman and Dunham explore a wide range of systemic death-penalty problems addressed in the book, which was released by The New Press in May 2021. The topics…

The parliament of Sierra Leone voted unanimously on July 23, 2021 to abolish the death penalty, making the West African nation of 7.8 million people the 23^rd country on the continent and the 110^th worldwide to end capital punishment. Pledging to sign the bill into law, President Julius Maada Bio (pictured) said on Twitter, “Today, I have fulfilled a governance pledge to permanently abolish the death penalty in Sierra Leone. I thank citizens, members of Parliament, development partners, and…

Lawyers for Texas death-row prisoner Rodney Reed (pictured) presented four days of testimony in a Bastrop County courthouse in an attempt to establish his innocence of the murder of Stacey Stites, as activists, religious leaders, and members of Reed’s family rallied in support of his case. The hearing, which is expected to take two weeks, began on July 19, 2021, with Reed’s case for innocence. His lawyers presented evidence that Reed, who is Black, was having an affair with Stites, who is…

In a video interview posthumously released on the anniversary of the first modern exoneration of a Florida death-row prisoner, former Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Gerald Kogan has called for abolition of the state’s death penalty. “I believe that the death penalty should absolutely not be a punishment delivered by the State of Florida, or for that matter, neither any place in the United States or the world,” Kogan said. The interview was recorded by attorney and filmmaker Ted Corless…

After clashing with Biden administration officials over the propriety of using statements obtained through torture from Guantánamo detainees, Army Brigadier General Mark S. Martins (pictured), the chief prosecutor in the Guantánamo Military Commissions trials, will retire from the military on September 30, 2021. Martins, who had served as the commissions’ chief prosecutor throughout the Obama and Trump administrations, abruptly submitted papers on July 7 providing notice of his early…

In a unanimous ruling, the California Supreme Court has limited the reach of a controversial voter initiative that was intended to accelerate judicial review of death-penalty cases. In In re: Friend, decided June 28, 2021, the court ruled that provisions of Proposition 66 that strictly limit a death-row prisoner’s ability to file successive challenges to his or her capital conviction or death sentence do not bar a capital petitioner from filing a second or subsequent petition that raises new…