Publications & Testimony

A more than $1.6 mil­lion price tag for pros­e­cut­ing a Colorado death-penal­ty case that the victim’s fam­i­ly opposed and that result­ed in a life sen­tence has caused some Coloradans to ques­tion whether cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tions are worth the cost. On August 14, 2019, Miguel Contreras-Perez (pic­tured) was sen­tenced to life in prison after he plead­ed guilty to the mur­der of a cor­rec­tion­al offi­cer and the attempt­ed mur­der of anoth­er offi­cer. The sen­tence came sev­en years…

In the lat­est episode of Discussions with DPIC, writer/​director Chinonye Chukwu (pic­tured) speaks with DPIC Senior Director of Research and Special Projects Ngozi Ndulue about her award-win­ning new film Clemency. Chukwu dis­cuss­es her inspi­ra­tion for the sto­ry, the years-long process of research and immer­sion that helped her shape the nar­ra­tive, and her hopes for how this film will be…

NEWS — August 30: A Tennessee tri­al judge has approved a plea deal to vacate the death sen­tence of Abu-Ali Abdur’Rahman as a result of pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct. Abdur’Rahman, who was sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed next year, argued that pros­e­cu­tor John Zimmerman exclud­ed poten­tial jurors based on race dur­ing Abdur’Rahman’s 1987 cap­i­tal tri­al. The cur­rent dis­trict attor­ney’s office agreed with Abdur’Rahman that his tri­al was infect­ed by ​“overt racial bias” and that as…

When Oregon​’s leg­is­la­tors passed a new law lim­it­ing the scope of the state’s death penal­ty, the spon­sors of the mea­sure offered assur­ances that it would not apply retroac­tive­ly to pris­on­ers on the state’s death row. Now, a new legal opin­ion by the Oregon Department of Justice has raised ques­tions as to how retroac­tive ​“not retroac­tive” actu­al­ly is and whether the new law applies to legal pro­ceed­ings involv­ing cur­rent death-row pris­on­ers whose con­vic­tions or death sentences…

The tur­moil sur­round­ing Ohio​’s death penal­ty con­tin­ued to grow as pub­lic health experts crit­i­cized a legislator’s sug­ges­tion that the state use seized drugs to car­ry out exe­cu­tions and the Speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives, Larry Householder (pic­tured), expressed grow­ing doubts about cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment itself. Governor Mike DeWine joined crit­ics of the fen­tanyl pro­pos­al, declar­ing that it was ​“not an option” for resum­ing exe­cu­tions in the…

In a case that rais­es con­cerns about pro­ce­dur­al imped­i­ments that pre­vent enforce­ment of con­sti­tu­tion­al rights, Florida is prepar­ing to exe­cute a man whose claim of intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty has nev­er been reviewed by the state or fed­er­al courts. [UPDATE: Florida exe­cut­ed Gary Ray Bowles on August 22,…

With seri­ous doubts swirling as to vir­tu­al­ly every piece of foren­sic evi­dence in his case, Texas plans to exe­cute Larry Swearingen—who has always main­tained his inno­cence in the mur­der of Melissa Trotter — on August 21, 2019. His attor­neys say his con­vic­tion is ground­ed in junk sci­ence that has been repu­di­at­ed by numer­ous foren­sic experts, includ­ing false tes­ti­mo­ny regard­ing panty­hose used to stran­gle Trotter, blood found under her fin­ger­nails, and the time of…

Leaders from two of the three con­gre­ga­tions affect­ed by the October 27, 2018 shoot­ings at the Tree of Life syn­a­gogue (pic­tured) in Pittsburgh are ask­ing the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment not to seek a death sen­tence for the accused white supremacist…

The U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Reform announced on August 14, 2019 that it has launched an inves­ti­ga­tion into the Department of Justice’s plan to restart fed­er­al exe­cu­tions using the drug pen­to­bar­bi­tal. Citing con­cerns about the source of drugs the Administration intends to use in five exe­cu­tions it has sched­uled in December 2019 and January 2020, the Oversight Committee’s Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties has sought doc­u­ments and infor­ma­tion from…

NEWS: Texas and Florida car­ried out the 12^th and 13^th U.S. exe­cu­tions in 2019 on August 21 and August 22. They were the fourth exe­cu­tion in Texas and the sec­ond in Florida this…