Publications & Testimony

Lawyers for fed­er­al death-row pris­on­er Wesley Purkey, who is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed on December 13, 2019, say he is incom­pe­tent to be exe­cut­ed because he has Alzheimer’s dis­ease, schiz­o­phre­nia, and trau­mat­ic brain injuries that​“ren­der him unable to ratio­nal­ly under­stand the rea­son the United States seeks…

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has asked the United States Supreme Court to lift a fed­er­al dis­trict court injunc­tion that is cur­rent­ly block­ing the gov­ern­ment from car­ry­ing out four sched­uled exe­cu­tions. The fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors’ December 2, 2019 fil­ing came with­in hours of a rul­ing by a unan­i­mous fed­er­al appeals pan­el in Washington that had refused to vacate the injunc­tion. The first of the fed­er­al exe­cu­tions is sched­uled for 8:00 a.m.

Saying that​“Virginia’s death penal­ty fails vic­tims’ fam­i­lies,” 13 fam­i­ly mem­bers of Virginia homi­cide vic­tims — includ­ing the daugh­ter of a sheriff’s deputy whose assailant was exe­cut­ed — have called on Virginia leg­is­la­tors to abolish…

In 1993, James Erin McKinney was con­vict­ed of two mur­ders com­mit­ted dur­ing the course of sep­a­rate bur­glar­ies. Sentenced under judge-only penal­ty pro­ce­dures that were lat­er declared uncon­sti­tu­tion­al, McKinney’s case for life includ­ed the pre­sen­ta­tion of mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence of chron­ic, severe child­hood abuse and neglect that left McKinney suf­fer­ing from Posttraumatic Stress Disorder…

DPIC Analysis: With the U.S. Supreme Court’s February 6 rul­ing deny­ing the Department of Justice’s appli­ca­tion to vacate the fed­er­al-exe­cu­­tion injunc­tions, more death war­rants will have been blocked by stays of exe­cu­tion or judi­cial injunc­tions in 2019 than will have been car­ried out. As of December 8, DPIC was aware of 65 death war­rants issued by 11 states and the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment that sched­uled exe­cu­tion dates for…

In a depar­ture from its pri­or edi­to­r­i­al stand, the Orlando Sentinel pub­lished an edi­to­r­i­al on November 22, 2019 call­ing for Florida to abol­ish the death penal­ty. Describing the state’s cap­i­­tal-pun­ish­­ment sys­tem as a​“hope­less quag­mire of inequities,” the Sentinel said “[t]oo many ques­tions can­not be ade­quate­ly answered for us to con­tin­ue sup­port­ing the death penal­ty, and for Florida to continue administering…

Popular cul­ture has the poten­tial to change social atti­tudes, and actors in two eager­ly antic­i­pat­ed movies focus­ing on the death penal­ty are hop­ing that their films will do just that. In recent inter­views about their roles in the dra­mas Just Mercy and Clemency, actors Jamie Foxx, Alfre Woodard, and Aldis Hodge dis­cuss how those films inspired them to open up about their past and…

For the first time since Gallup began ask­ing the ques­tion in 1985, a major­i­ty of Americans now say life impris­on­ment is a bet­ter approach for pun­ish­ing mur­der than is the death penal­ty. According to the 2019 Gallup death-penal­­ty poll (click here to enlarge graph­ic), 60% per­cent of Americans asked to choose whether the death penal­ty or life with­out pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole​“is the bet­ter penal­ty for mur­der” chose the life-sen­­tenc­ing option. 36% favored…

NEWS — November 29: The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has affirmed a fed­er­al dis­trict court rul­ing grant­i­ng Arizona death-row pris­on­er Barry Lee Jones a new tri­al based on his tri­al lawyer’s fail­ure to inves­ti­gate and present evi­dence that he is inno­cent. Jones had been con­vict­ed of sex­u­al assault, three counts ofchild abuse, and felony mur­der in con­nec­tion with the death of a four-year-old girl, Rachel Gold. The court found that,…

The num­ber of peo­ple on death row or fac­ing cap­i­tal resen­tenc­ing in the United States is at a 27-year low, accord­ing to a DPIC analy­sis of data from a new death-row cen­sus by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF). The Summer 2019 edi­tion of Death Row USA, released ear­li­er this month, reports that 2,656 peo­ple were on death row as of July 1, 2019. That last time DRUSA report­ed a death-row pop­u­la­tion that small was in the Fall of 1992,…