Publications & Testimony

Glynn Simmons keeps a copy of his death war­rant, signed by the Oklahoma gov­er­nor 50 years ago, order­ing his exe­cu­tion in the elec­tric chair. He was 22 years old at the time, con­vict­ed of a mur­der he did not com­mit. Forty-eight years lat­er, after becom­ing the longest-incar­­cer­at­ed wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed per­son in U.S. his­to­ry, Mr. Simmons’ sto­ry has become cen­tral to a grow­ing con­ser­v­a­tive move­ment ques­tion­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment — one that Nan Tolson is…

The Guardian’s recent four-part series exam­ines the expe­ri­ences of women in prison around the world, with a focus on those fac­ing the death penal­ty. The series illu­mi­nates a large­ly over­looked issue with­in glob­al crim­i­nal legal sys­tems: the fail­ure to rec­og­nize how gen­der-based vio­lence shapes women’s jour­neys to incar­cer­a­tion and death row. The glob­al incar­cer­a­tion of women has reached its high­est lev­els, with more than 733,000 women and girls held in prisons…

On November 26, 2025, Jimmie Duncan was released on bail from Louisiana’s Angola prison after spend­ing 27 years on death row for a crime that a court now says nev­er occurred. Ouachita Parish District Attorney Robert Tew opposed Mr. Duncan’s release on bail and main­tains that he is guilty of rape and mur­der. Mr. Duncan’s attor­neys dis­pute this and say Judge Alvin Sharp’s bail rul­ing​“acknowl­edged the clear and con­vinc­ing evi­dence show­ing Mr. Duncan is factually innocent.” >…

Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist once explained that exec­u­tive clemen­cy is intend­ed to oper­ate as the​“fail safe” of the cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem. It is the final oppor­tu­ni­ty, after all legal avenues have been exhaust­ed, for an exec­u­tive to decide whether to spare a pris­on­er from exe­cu­tion. Most grants of indi­vid­ual clemen­cy come after con­sid­er­a­tion of one or more fac­tors, includ­ing evi­dence of offi­cial mis­con­duct or oth­er unfair legal…

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…