Publications & Testimony

When Indiana executed Matthew Wrinkles on December 11, 2009, it was the twentieth execution carried out since the state reinstated the death penalty in May of 1973. It was also the last execution the state has carried out. A decade later, Indiana has now joined the list of 32 states that no longer have the death penalty or have not executed anyone in at least 10 years. (Click here to enlarge map.) No Indiana jury has sentenced a defendant to die since 2013. Although the United States has…

Texas is preparing to execute Travis Runnels (pictured) on December 11, 2019 based on the “expert” testimony of a prosecution investigator whose false depiction of prison conditions has helped to put fifteen defendants on the state’s death row. If Runnels is executed, he will be the third person put to death in Texas this year after former Texas Special Prosecution Unit criminal investigator, A.P. Merillat provided false testimony at their trials. Runnels was convicted and sentenced to death…

The United States Supreme Court has denied an application by the U.S. Department of Justice to lift a federal court injunction blocking the federal government from carrying out four executions scheduled for December 2019 and January 2020. The Court’s unanimous ruling, issued Friday evening December 6, ensures that there will be no federal executions in 2019. On July 25, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that the federal government intended to restart federal executions and that…

A federal appeals court has reversed the conviction of Arizona death-row prisoner Barry Jones (pictured) based on medical evidence suggesting that he may not have committed the murder for which he was sentenced to death. On November 29, 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit threw out Jones’ convictions for child abuse, sexual assault, and felony murder of his girlfriend’s four-year-old daughter amid doubts about the prosecution’s claims that Jones had battered and sexually…

The state of Tennessee executed Lee Hall (pictured) on December 5, 2019, without providing him judicial review of a legal claim that led the state’s courts to overturn the conviction of a former death-row prisoner just weeks before. Citing what he characterized as “extensive” judicial review spanning “the course of almost 30 years,” Tennessee Governor Bill Lee announced on December 4 that he had denied clemency to Hall, who became blind during his time on death row. That review, Governor Lee…

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 to execute him.” Purkey’s complaint, filed November 26, 2019 in federal district court in Washington, catalogues a lifelong history of trauma and mental illness that have contributed to his…

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. (Eastern time) on Monday, December 9. On July 25…

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 capital punishment. The letter, released by the advocacy organization Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty on November 21, 2019, calls Virginia’s death penalty system “inefficient and ineffective.” “Our direct experiences with the criminal justice system…

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 (PTSD). The sentencing judge found McKinney’s childhood to be so horrific that it was “beyond the comprehension of…

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 2019. Courts have stayed or enjoined 24 of those warrants, while 21…