Publications & Testimony

The number of prisoners on death row across the United States continues to decline while the average amount of time they have been on death row approaches 19 years, according to a new report from the Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). BJS’s June 2021 annual death penalty review found that 2,570 prisoners were under sentence of death in the custody of 29 states and the U.S. federal government as of December 31, 2019, down 2.1% from the 2,626 prisoners on death row at the…

An Ohio trial court has resentenced death-row prisoner David Braden (pictured) to life without parole, making him the first person in the nation taken off death row by a state law barring capital punishment for people with severe mental illness. On June 23, 2021, Franklin County Court of Common Pleas Judge Colleen O’Donnell formally vacated the two death sentences imposed on Braden in June 1999 for the murders of his girlfriend and her father and sentenced him to life without parole on both…

Following additional revelations that Richard Glossip (pictured) may be innocent of the murder that sent him to Oklahoma’s death row in 1998, a bipartisan group of 34 state legislators are calling upon Governor Kevin Stitt and the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board to conduct an independent investigation into Glossip’s case. 28 Republican and six Democratic legislators — including many who are supporters of the death penalty — sent a letter to Stitt and the Board on May 17, 2021 advocating for…

Unheard voices from death row come to life in the new book, Right Here, Right Now: Life Stories from America’s Death Row. The book, a collaborative project between the arts collective Hidden Voices and more than 100 men on death rows across the United States, thematically weaves together their personal narratives to create a comprehensive picture of who is on death row, how they got there, what they experience, and why their lives matter. The men’s collaboration with Hidden Voices began in…

The Nevada Department of Corrections (NVDOC) intends to execute death-row prisoner Zane Floyd with a three- or four-drug combination that has never been used before to put a prisoner to death. In a proposed execution protocol released on June 10, 2021, NVDOC said its execution cocktail would be drawn from six possible drugs, depending upon availability. While acknowledging ongoing challenges to the legality and constitutionality of NVDOC’s planned execution process, Las Vegas trial judge…

NEWS (6/17/21) — Ohio: A split panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has granted a new trial to Ohio death-row prisoner August Cassano, holding that he had been tried in violation of his Sixth Amendment right to self-representation. Prior to trial, saying that his appointed counsel that his counsel “rarely visited him, failed to provide him with updates on the case, and frequently lied to him,” Cassano filed a pro se motion to waive his right to counsel and a second motion…

Today, the DPIC office is closed in observance of Juneteenth, which celebrates the emancipation of enslaved people in the United States. As we commemorate this holiday, we remember the historical relationship between slavery, lynching, Jim Crow segregation, and the death penalty and their use as instruments of social control to maintain racial hierarchy. Our September 2020 report, Enduring Injustice, delves into the historical use of capital punishment, providing context for the racial…

The South Carolina Supreme Court has vacated death warrants for two death-row prisoners scheduled to be executed this month, staying their executions until the South Carolina Department of Corrections (SCDOC) complies with a newly enacted state law requiring that it offer condemned prisoners the option of being executed by firing squad. In separate orders issued on June 16, 2021 in the cases of Brad Sigmon, who faced a June 18 execution, and Freddie Owens, who was scheduled to be executed June…

As the Department of Justice filed a brief in the U.S. Supreme Court seeking reinstatement of the death sentence imposed on Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in the Boston Marathon bombing, the White House press office issued a statement stressing the independence of the Department over the cases it is pursuing and asserting that President Joe Biden has not backed away from his campaign promise to work to end the federal death penalty. On June 14, 2021, Department of Justice lawyers filed the government’s…

As South Carolina and Arizona prepare to resume executions using gruesome methods of the past, Alabama prosecutors say the state is nearly ready to perform executions using a new, untested method, nitrogen hypoxia. In court filings on June 8, 2021, in the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina, the Alabama Attorney General’s office said the Alabama Department of Corrections “is nearing completion of the initial physical build for the nitrogen hypoxia system and its safety…