Publications & Testimony

NEWS (6/​12/​20) — Texas: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit lifted a stay of execution the federal district court had granted to Ruben Gutierrez. The action reactivates the death warrant scheduling Mr. Gutierrez’s execution for June 16. Gutierrez had sought the stay to permit DNA testing that he says will show that he did not commit the killing that put him on death row and to be permitted the presence of a chaplain in the execution chamber if the execution were to be carried out.

NEWS (6/​11/​20) — Florida: The Florida Supreme Court applied new cases that retroactively changed the law regarding claims of intellectual disability and the unconstitutionality of death sentences imposed after non-unanimous jury votes for death to uphold the death sentences imposed on Alphonso Cave and Gary Lawrence. Cave had been unconstitutionally sentenced to death three different times. Twice his death sentence had been overturned. He was sentenced to death a third time after a…

A new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has documented a strong link between individuals who hold dehumanizing belief systems and support for capital punishment. The study by University of Oregon Journalism and Communications Professor David Markowitz (pictured, left) and Psychology Professor Paul Slovic (pictured, right), was part of ongoing academic efforts to explain why some people dehumanize undocumented immigrants to the United States. The researchers found…

Florida death-row exoneree Clifford Williams, Jr. (pictured), who was freed in 2019 after spending 43 years in prison, will receive $2.15 million in compensation from the state of Florida under a bill signed into law by Governor Ron DeSantis on June 9, 2020. The bill, specifically tailored to compensate Williams, unanimously passed both chambers of the Florida legislature in March. Williams and his nephew, Nathan Myers, were wrongfully convicted of murder in 1976. Both received jury…

Bobby Moore (pictured), the man at the center of a case that altered how Texas determines intellectual disability in death-penalty cases, has been granted parole after spending 40 years in prison. He served nearly all of that sentence on Texas’ death row. The U.S. Supreme Court twice reversed Texas appeals court decisions that would have permitted Moore’s execution before his death sentence was ultimately overturned. In 2017, in Moore v. Texas, the Court unanimously struck down Texas’…

Twenty-eight years after Philadelphia prosecutors first sought to take his life for the murder of four-year-old Barbara Jean Horn, Walter Ogrod (pictured, second from right, with members of his defense team) has been exonerated from Pennsylvania’s death row. In a dramatic virtual hearing on June 5, 2020 that was attended by Ogrod, his family, Barbara Jean’s mother, counsel, and the media, Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas Judge Shelley Robins New granted a joint motion by prosecutors and…

The North Carolina Supreme Court has struck down the state legislature’s attempted retroactive repeal of the state’s Racial Justice Act (RJA), restoring the rights of approximately 140 death-row prisoners to seek redress of death sentences that they had claimed were substantially affected by racial bias. The Court issued its rulings in the cases of death-row prisoners Andrew Ramseur (pictured, left) and Rayford Burke (pictured, right) on June 5, 2020, holding that ​“the retroactive application…

In three decades of providing information and analysis on the death penalty, DPIC has covered thousands of cases, studies, and scholarly articles on the administration of the death penalty in the United States. We know that racial injustice has been a core problem in the administration of the death penalty and that it persists to the present day. The history of the death penalty is intertwined with that of vigilante and law enforcement violence against African Americans. With this knowledge, we…

NEWS (6/​5/​20) — North Carolina: The North Carolina Supreme Court has struck down the state legislature’s attempted retroactive repeal of the state’s Racial Justice Act, restoring the rights of approximately 130 death-row prisoners to seek redress of death sentences that they had claimed were substantially affected by racial bias. The Court issued its 6 – 1 rulings in the cases of death-row prisoners Andrew Ramseur (pictured, left) and Rayford Burke (pictured, right), holding that ​“the…

NEWS (6/​5/​20) — Ohio: Governor Mike DeWine (pictured) issued reprieves to the last three Ohio death-row prisoners facing executions dates in 2020, ensuring that the state will not carry out any executions this year. A news release announcing the action said the reprieves were granted ​“due to ongoing problems involving the willingness of pharmaceutical suppliers to provide drugs to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (DRC), pursuant to DRC protocol, without endangering other…