Publications & Testimony

On November 19, 2025, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) released Fatal Flaws: Innocence, Race and Wrongful Convictions, the sec­ond install­ment in its mul­ti-part series exam­in­ing racial­ized and struc­tur­al fail­ures in the nation’s cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem. The first report of the series, Fatal Flaws: Revealing the Racial and Religious Gerrymandering of the Capital Jury, explored how the process of death qual­i­fi­ca­tion dis­torts the com­po­si­tion of capital juries.

Mr. Menzies lacks a ratio­nal under­stand­ing that he is to be exe­cut­ed for the crime of mur­der, as he does not under­stand the State’s ratio­nale for levy­ing his pun­ish­ment in gen­er­al or to him in par­tic­u­lar.” — Dr. Michael Brooks, Utah Department of Health and Human Services In a new men­tal com­pe­ten­cy report pre­pared by the Utah Department of Health and Human Services, a state med­ical pro­fes­sion­al has found death-sen­­tenced pris­on­er Ralph Menzies…

Tremane Wood was sched­uled to die at 10 a.m. local time on November 13. According to jour­nal­ist Hilary Andersson, who trav­eled to Oklahoma to observe the exe­cu­tion, the call from the gov­er­nor came at 9:59 a.m. Mr. Wood learned that his life would be spared at the lit­er­al​“last minute.” While Mr. Wood, his attor­neys, and his fam­i­ly expe­ri­enced over­whelm­ing relief in the after­math of the clemen­cy grant, accord­ing to Ms. Andersson, some also expressed shock at the timing…

Richard​“Malik” Randolph is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed on November 20, 2025, for the 1988 mur­der of Minnie Ruth McCollum. If car­ried out, Mr. Randolph’s exe­cu­tion will mark Florida’s 17^th exe­cu­tion of the year — more than dou­ble the pre­vi­ous record of eight exe­cu­tions in one year, and the sev­enth exe­cu­tion of a mil­i­tary vet­er­an by the state in 2025. According to his lawyers, Mr. Randolph’s child­hood was marked by pro­found trau­ma: adopt­ed at five months old, he endured…

Some elect­ed offi­cials and leg­is­la­tors have recent­ly pro­mot­ed some meth­ods of exe­cu­tion as more​“humane” than oth­ers. But every exe­cu­tion method ever used has been shown to car­ry the risk of error and mal­func­tion, with the result that the pris­on­er may expe­ri­ence pain and suf­fer­ing as they are exe­cut­ed. Exactly how much pain and suf­fer­ing the law per­mits is a con­sti­tu­tion­al ques­tion that has evolved with time and society’s beliefs. Methods once viewed as…

On October 30, 2025, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of New Hampshire and the ACLU Capital Punishment Project joint­ly filed a 27-page ami­cus brief on behalf of Michael Addison, an African American man and the only remain­ing per­son under a death sen­tence in New Hampshire. Mr. Addison was con­vict­ed in 2008 of cap­i­tal mur­der for the fatal shoot­ing of a white Manchester police offi­cer. The fil­ing cites find­ings from the Capital Jury Project (CJP), which show that…

On November 13, 2025, just hours before Tremane Wood was sched­uled for exe­cu­tion, Governor Kevin Stitt accept­ed the rec­om­men­da­tion of the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board and reduced Mr. Wood’s sen­tence to life with­out parole. In a state­ment, Gov. Stitt said,​“This action reflects the same pun­ish­ment his broth­er received for their mur­der of an inno­cent young man and ensures a severe pun­ish­ment that keeps a vio­lent offend­er off the streets for­ev­er. In Oklahoma, we will…

As the United States pre­pares to observe Veterans Day 2025, the Death Penalty Information Center today released a new com­pre­hen­sive report: Forgotten Service, Lasting Wounds: Military Veterans and the Death Penalty. The report reveals that approx­i­mate­ly 200 mil­i­tary vet­er­ans await exe­cu­tion on death rows across the U.S., and one in sev­en exe­cu­tions since 1972 has been a mil­i­tary vet­er­an. Many of the juries that sen­tenced these men and women to death nev­er heard about…