Publications & Testimony

On December 27, 2024, the Tennessee Department of Correction (TDOC) com­plet­ed a mul­ti-year lethal injec­tion pro­to­col review and announced that instead of the pre­vi­ous three-drug cock­tail, lethal injec­tion exe­cu­tions will use a sin­­gle-drug bar­bi­t­u­ate, pen­to­bar­bi­tal. Ohio was the first state to use pen­to­bar­bi­tal, in the March 2011 exe­cu­tion of Johnnie Roy Baston. State offi­cials now use sin­gle drug pro­to­cols in 14 states, includ­ing Tennessee, as well as in…

On December 31, 2024, dur­ing his last day in office, out­go­ing North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper com­mut­ed the death sen­tences of 15 men on the state’s death row to life in prison with­out parole.​“These reviews are among the most dif­fi­cult deci­sion a Governor can make and the death penal­ty is the most severe sen­tence that the state can impose,” said Gov. Cooper in a state­ment fol­low­ing the announce­ment of the com­mu­ta­tions.​“After thor­ough review, reflec­tion, and prayer,…

On December 17, 2024, a bipar­ti­san group of Texas leg­is­la­tors in the House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence issued a new sub­poe­na for death-sen­­tenced Robert Roberson to tes­ti­fy in per­son on December 20 about the state’s junk sci­ence law, under which he failed to receive relief. Gretchen Sween, attor­ney for Mr. Roberson, said that he was​“eager to tes­ti­fy and grate­ful for the chance to be heard.” But just two days after the issuance of the sub­poe­na, and a day ahead of Mr.

On December 13, 2024, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed the August, 2024 dis­missal of a law­suit that sought to chal­lenge, on First Amendment grounds, a South Carolina Department of Corrections’ (SCDC) pol­i­cy that pro­hibits the pub­li­ca­tion of inter­views between pris­on­ers and the media or mem­bers of the pub­lic. In its deci­sion, the Fourth Circuit cit­ed to Houchins v. KQED, a 1978 Supreme Court rul­ing which held that the U.S. Constitution does…

If Joseph Corcoran had been sen­tenced to death just a few miles to the east, across the bor­der in Ohio instead of in Fort Wayne, Indiana, it’s like­ly that a court would have barred his exe­cu­tion. Ohio law pre­vents a per­son with a seri­ous men­tal ill­ness (SMI) at the time of their crime, defined as schiz­o­phre­nia, schizoaf­fec­tive dis­or­der, bipo­lar dis­or­der, or delu­sion­al dis­or­der, from being put to death. Mr. Corcoran, who has a long his­to­ry of paranoid…

On December 12, 2024, the Florida Supreme Court heard oral argu­ments in the case of Michael James Jackson, who is chal­leng­ing the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of Florida’s 2023 law that allows for non-unan­i­­mous jury death sen­tences. Mr. Jackson is rep­re­sent­ed by the ACLU, who argued that the Florida law is uncon­sti­tu­tion­al under the Supreme Court’s 2020 rul­ing in Ramos v. Louisiana, which struck down non-unan­i­­mous crim­i­nal con­vic­tions. According to the ACLU’s brief,…

On December 9, 2024, the 10^th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a tem­po­rary stay for Kevin Underwood’s clemen­cy hear­ing sched­uled that same-day with the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board, which is lack­ing its full five-mem­ber com­pli­ment after two res­ig­na­tions in recent months and one last minute addi­tion on December 6. This deci­sion marks the sec­ond time Mr. Underwood’s clemen­cy hear­ing has been can­celed. Meanwhile, Mr. Underwood, age 44, is fac­ing a December 19 exe­cu­tion date, and if it were to…

In let­ters released on December 9, 2024, hun­dreds of stake­hold­ers urged President Joe Biden (pic­tured) to com­mute all fed­er­al death sen­tences before his term ends, cit­ing racial bias, sys­temic arbi­trari­ness, and the fail­ure of the fed­er­al death penal­ty to enhance pub­lic safe­ty. This col­lec­tive request reflects broad, bipar­ti­san acknowl­edge­ment of the flaws in the cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem and aligns with the nation­al down­ward trend of sup­port for the death penal­ty, now at his­toric lows. 40…

The state of Indiana is sched­uled to car­ry out its first exe­cu­tion in 15 years on December 18, 2024, with the sched­uled exe­cu­tion of Joseph Corcoran (pic­tured). Sentenced to death for the 1997 mur­ders of four peo­ple, includ­ing his broth­er, Mr. Corcoran has a long his­to­ry of seri­ous men­tal ill­ness. He has been diag­nosed with schiz­o­phre­nia, which includes symp­toms of hal­lu­ci­na­tions and delu­sions, and mul­ti­ple experts have tes­ti­fied that he is incom­pe­tent to face exe­cu­tion. Mr. Corcoran holds…