Publications & Testimony

In a recent­ly pub­lished aca­d­e­m­ic arti­cle, Emory University History Professor Daniel LaChance writes about an impor­tant and under­rec­og­nized dis­tinc­tion in the way news­pa­per edi­tors and jour­nal­ists cov­ered the exe­cu­tions of Black and white men in the late 19^th and ear­ly 20^th cen­turies. Professor LaChance argues that the por­tray­als of the defen­dants made legal exe­cu­tions ​“a high-sta­tus pun­ish­ment that respect­ed the white­ness of those who suf­fered it.” While the length and detail of articles…

In North Carolina, a coali­tion of activists is call­ing on Governor Roy Cooper to com­mute the death sen­tences of 136 peo­ple ​“as an act of racial jus­tice” before he leaves office in 2024. Edward ​“Ed” Chapman, a death row exoneree who spent 14 years on death row, along with oth­er advo­cates with the North Carolina Coalition for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, are urg­ing Gov. Cooper to grant clemen­cy to all death-sen­tenced indi­vid­u­als in North Carolina ​“because of the injus­tices of the death…

In this month’s episode of Discussions with DPIC, Managing Director Anne Holsinger speaks with John Bessler (pic­tured), Professor of Law at the University of Baltimore School of Law. Professor Bessler is the author of sev­er­al books on the death penal­ty, includ­ing his 2023 book The Death Penalty’s Denial of Fundamental Human Rights: International Law, State Practice, and the Emerging Abolitionist Norm. In his most recent book, Professor Bessler argues that the death penalty…

On November 30, 2023, the Mississippi Supreme Court ordered that the state’s request to set an exe­cu­tion date for death row pris­on­er Willie Manning be held until the court rules on a recent peti­tion seek­ing to bring new evi­dence of Mr. Manning’s inno­cence. Mr. Manning’s attor­neys had filed a peti­tion at the court on September 29, ask­ing for an oppor­tu­ni­ty to present recan­ta­tions from jail­house infor­mants who tes­ti­fied against Mr. Manning, as well as new expert analy­sis debunk­ing the…

On November 7, Chinese media report­ed that for­mer pri­ma­ry school prin­ci­pal Zhang Longji was exe­cut­ed via lethal injec­tion for rap­ing five girls, age 8 – 12, and sex­u­al­ly molest­ing 17 girls, age 8 – 14. Sun Deshun, for­mer pres­i­dent of China CITIC Bank Corporation Limited, who was con­vict­ed of accept­ing $1 bil­lion yuan ($137 mil­lion) in bribes, was giv­en a sus­pend­ed death sen­tence by the Intermediate People’s Court in Jinan on November 10. If no new crimes are com­mit­ted dur­ing the two-year…

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman to sit on the United States Supreme Court, died at the age of 93 on December 1, 2023. In her 25-year tenure on the Court, Justice O’Connor authored opin­ions in sev­er­al land­mark death penal­ty cas­es, includ­ing deci­sions that upheld the use of the death penal­ty for vul­ner­a­ble groups and peo­ple with dimin­ished cul­pa­bil­i­ty. However, she demon­strat­ed an ear­ly inter­est in improv­ing cap­i­tal defense stan­dards, and in her lat­er years on the Court expressed…

Oklahoma exe­cut­ed Phillip Hancock (pic­tured) on November 30, 2023, fol­low­ing Governor Kevin Stitt’s rejec­tion of the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board’s rec­om­men­da­tion that his sen­tence be f com­mut­ed to life with­out parole. The governor’s inde­ci­sion left Mr. Hancock wait­ing anx­ious­ly right up to the time of his sched­uled exe­cu­tion when the governor’s office told the prison war­den to pro­ceed. Mr. Hancock is the 123^rd per­son exe­cut­ed in Oklahoma since the rein­state­ment of the death penal­ty in…

Against a back­drop of high-pro­file inno­cence cas­es and the U.S. Supreme Court’s seem­ing indif­fer­ence to them, the 2023 Gallup poll found that more Americans now believe that the death penal­ty is admin­is­tered unfair­ly than fair­ly. Use of the death penal­ty remained geo­graph­i­cal­ly iso­lat­ed, with only five states car­ry­ing out exe­cu­tions and only sev­en impos­ing death sen­tences. For the ninth con­sec­u­tive year, few­er than 30 peo­ple were exe­cut­ed and few­er than 50 were sen­tenced to death.

Tomorrow, the Death Penalty Information Center will release a report that doc­u­ments how racial bias and vio­lence affect­ed the past use of the death penal­ty in Missouri and how that his­to­ry con­tin­ues to influ­ence the cur­rent admin­is­tra­tion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the state. Compromised Justice: How A Legacy of Racial Violence Informs Missouri’s Death Penalty Today, sched­uled for release on December 1, 2023, notes that his­tor­i­cal­ly and into the present…

“Commission mem­bers unan­i­mous­ly rec­om­mend that the cur­rent mora­to­ri­um on the death penal­ty be extend­ed,” said a near­ly 300-page report pub­lished by the Oklahoma Death Penalty Review Commission in 2017. More than six years lat­er, almost none of the 45 rec­om­men­da­tions have been imple­ment­ed. Former U.S. Magistrate Judge Andy Lester, one of three co-chairs of the Commission, reit­er­at­ed the call for a mora­to­ri­um in a November 27, 2023 let­ter to the edi­tors of non​doc​.com. ​“Whether you support…