Publications & Testimony

In the past two weeks, the Supreme Court over­turned grants of relief for two death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers. In both cas­es, low­er courts had found they received inef­fec­tive assis­tance of coun­sel at tri­al. The Court’s rul­ings are in line with its oth­er deci­sions in death penal­ty cas­es restrict­ing appeals for death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers and extolling the impor­tance of ​“final­i­ty” over merits-based…

On June 11, 2024, the Ohio Legislative Black Caucus (OLBC) held a press con­fer­ence high­light­ing the group’s leg­isla­tive pri­or­i­ties, which includ­ed the death penal­ty as a key con­cern. Noting ​“the racial cycle of injus­tice per­pe­trat­ed by the death penal­ty,” State Representative Terrence Upchurch, who is also the pres­i­dent of the OLBC, insist­ed that leg­isla­tive lead­er­ship move toward ​“dis­man­tling this flawed sys­tem and estab­lish­ing a new lega­cy of equal­i­ty and justice in…

A June 2024 peti­tion filed in the Prince William County, Virginia Circuit Court, accus­es for­mer Commonwealth Attorney (CA) Paul Ebert of with­hold­ing excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence dur­ing the tri­al of Louis Jefferson Dukes Jr., who, along with his nephew Lonnie Weeks Jr., was con­vict­ed of mur­der­ing a state troop­er in 1994 dur­ing a traf­fic stop. Mr. Dukes was found guilty and sen­tenced to life in prison, while Mr. Weeks was found guilty, received the death penal­ty, and was exe­cut­ed in 2000. In the…

On June 4, 2024, the Missouri Supreme Court set a September 24, 2024, exe­cu­tion date for death-sen­tenced pris­on­er Marcellus Williams (pic­tured), despite seri­ous doubts that he was not involved in the mur­der for which he is incar­cer­at­ed. The announce­ment came just hours after the state Supreme Court ruled that Governor Mike Parson did not vio­late any rules when he dis­solved a board of inquiry estab­lished in June 2023 by his pre­de­ces­sor, Eric Greitens, to inves­ti­gate Mr. William’s claim of…

On June 1, 2024, an Idaho jury sen­tenced Chad Daybell to death for the 2019 mur­ders of his first wife and his sec­ond wife’s two youngest chil­dren. Mr. Daybell plead­ed not guilty to mul­ti­ple first-degree mur­der, fraud, and con­spir­a­cy charges, but after being found guilty, he chose to waive his right to present mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence dur­ing his sen­tenc­ing hear­ing. With this deci­sion, Mr. Daybell declined the oppor­tu­ni­ty to pro­vide the jury with rea­sons why he should not be sen­tenced to death.

On May 7, 2024, Harm Reduction International (HRI) released a spe­cial glob­al overview report on the use of the death penal­ty for drug offens­es, which is a vio­la­tion of inter­na­tion­al law because drug offens­es do not meet the ​“most seri­ous” crimes thresh­old. HRI found that by the end of 2023, there were 34 coun­tries which still retained the death penal­ty for drug-relat­ed offens­es; Pakistan was the only coun­try to recent­ly elim­i­nate the death penal­ty for such offens­es – the first coun­try in more…

In April 2023, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed leg­is­la­tion that low­ered the thresh­old for juries to rec­om­mend death sen­tences from a unan­i­mous vote to a vote of 8 – 4 in favor of death, and experts allege this law has result­ed in a ​“quin­tes­sen­tial game of chance” for those await­ing cap­i­tal resen­tenc­ing or tri­al. An ami­cus brief, or friend-of-the-court brief, sub­mit­ted to the Florida Supreme Court argues that this change to the state’s death penal­ty process vio­lates capital defendants’…

In this month’s episode of Discussions with DPIC, Managing Director Anne Holsinger speaks with Lamont Hunter (pic­tured), a for­mer Ohio death-sen­tenced pris­on­er who was wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed of caus­ing the death of his three-year-old son. After near­ly 18 years of incar­cer­a­tion, Mr. Hunter was released from Ohio’s death row on June 15, 2023, after plead­ing guilty to less­er charges in exchange for his free­dom. Since his release, Mr. Hunter has spo­ken wide­ly about his expe­ri­ence with the…

According to Amnesty International’s annu­al death penal­ty report for 2023, 16 coun­tries car­ried out the 1,153 known exe­cu­tions last year, con­sti­tut­ing the low­est num­ber of exe­cut­ing coun­tries on record with the orga­ni­za­tion but the high­est record­ed exe­cu­tion num­bers since 2015. The 31% glob­al increase in record­ed exe­cu­tions is attrib­ut­able to the 48% rise in exe­cu­tions in Iran (at least 853 exe­cu­tions), which account­ed for 74% of record­ed exe­cu­tions world­wide. Saudi Arabia came in second with…

May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and the impact of men­tal ill­ness is keen­ly felt on death row: at least two in five peo­ple exe­cut­ed have a doc­u­ment­ed seri­ous men­tal ill­ness, and research sug­gests that many more death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers are undi­ag­nosed. A nation­al major­i­ty, 60% of Americans, oppos­es exe­cut­ing peo­ple with seri­ous men­tal ill­ness. In the past two decades, sci­ence and med­i­cine have con­tributed to a much bet­ter under­stand­ing of how seri­ous men­tal ill­ness, which refers to…