Publications & Testimony

In a dra­mat­ic rever­sal made pos­si­ble by changes in court per­son­nel, the Florida Supreme Court has repu­di­at­ed its pri­or deci­sions requir­ing that cap­i­tal sen­tenc­ing juries unan­i­mous­ly agree to the death penal­ty before a tri­al judge may sen­tence a defen­dant to death.​“Our court … got it wrong,” the jus­tices said, when it ruled in 2016 that death sen­tences imposed after non-unan­i­­mous jury rec­om­men­da­tions for death vio­lat­ed the state and federal…

In a case pros­e­cu­tors now describe as a​“per­fect storm” of injus­tice, Pennsylvania death-row pris­on­er Christopher Williams (pic­tured) and his co-defen­­dant Theophalis Wilson have been exon­er­at­ed of a 1989 triple murder in…

Saying that Nicholas Sutton​“has gone from a life-tak­er to a life-saver,” lawyers for the Tennessee death-row pris­on­er filed an appli­ca­tion for clemen­cy with Governor Bill Lee on January 14, 2020. The clemen­cy appli­ca­tion, which requests that Lee com­mute Sutton’s sen­tence to life with­out parole, con­tained affi­davits of sup­port from sev­en Tennessee cor­rec­tion­al offi­cials, mem­bers of the vic­tims’ fam­i­lies, and five of…

A DPIC analy­sis of exe­cu­tions and new death sen­tences in 2019 has found that even as death penal­ty usage declined across the United States, racial dis­par­i­ties in its application…

NEWS — January 24: Keith​“Bo” Tharpe has died on Georgia’s death row. He was 61 years old. Tharpe was tried and sen­tenced to death in 1991, a mere three months after his offense. His sen­tence was taint­ed by a racist juror who referred to Tharpe as a​“ni***r” and said he won­dered whether​“Black peo­ple even have souls.” Tharpe’s appeals lawyers said he like­ly died of…

On Martin Luther King Day, DPIC looks at the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King’s views on the death…

The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles has grant­ed clemen­cy to death-row pris­on­er Jimmy Meders (pic­tured). One day after his January 15, 2020 clemen­cy hear­ing, and just six hours before his sched­uled exe­cu­tion, the Board announced it had com­mut­ed Meders’ death sen­tence to a sen­tence of life without…

A three-judge pan­el of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit heard near­ly two hours of argu­ment on January 15, 2020 in four con­sol­i­dat­ed cas­es that could deter­mine whether the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment will be able to resume exe­cu­tions in 2020. The appeals pan­el — com­posed of Gregory G. Katsas and Neomi Rao, both appoint­ed by President Donald Trump, and David S. Tatel, appoint­ed by for­mer President Bill Clinton — sharply ques­tioned lawyers for the U.S. Department of…

As Texas pre­pared to car­ry out the first exe­cu­tion of 2020 on January 15, neigh­bor­ing Oklahoma — once the sec­ond most pro­lif­ic exe­cu­tion­er in the United States — marked five years since its last exe­cu­tion. The states present a con­trast in exe­cu­tion prac­tices. Though the use of the death penal­ty has sharply declined in both states, Texas con­tin­ues to lead the nation in exe­cu­tions, while Oklahoma will join the near­ly two-thirds of…

Just Mercy, the movie adap­ta­tion of Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) Executive Director Bryan Stevenson​’s book of the same name, cel­e­brat­ed its nation­wide release on January 10, 2020 with week­end tick­et sales of more than $9.7 mil­lion. The film, which focus­es on the wrong­ful con­vic­tion of Walter McMillian—one of Stevenson’s ear­ly death-penal­­ty cas­es — ranked fifth among all movies in domestic box…