Publications & Testimony

In​“Gendered Capital Punishment,” Cornell Law School Clinical Professor Sandra Babcock exam­ines how the gen­der of actors in cap­i­tal cas­es affects out­comes for women defen­dants. Professor Babcock’s research doc­u­ments that 96% of women cur­rent­ly sen­tenced to death in the US were pros­e­cut­ed by male pros­e­cu­tors, 89% appeared before male judges, and more than one-third had exclu­sive­ly male deci­­sion-mak­ers through­out their cas­es. These sta­tis­tics are rel­e­vant, says…

In late August 2025, the First District Court of Appeals of Ohio ruled that Hamilton County pros­e­cu­tors can­not use pri­or wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny in their retri­al of Elwood Jones, who was on Ohio’s death row for 27 years until he was grant­ed a new tri­al in December 2022. Mr. Jones was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death for the mur­der of Rhoda Nathan in a Blue Ash, Ohio, hotel in 1994, despite con­sis­tent­ly main­tain­ing his inno­cence. In 2022, Hamilton County Common Pleas Court…

40 active death war­rants have been issued in the United States thus far in 2025 — more than a third of them were issued by one indi­vid­ual, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, in a process cloaked in secre­cy. The only two states that place author­i­ty sole­ly in the hands of the gov­er­nor to issue an exe­cu­tion war­rant are Florida, which has exe­cut­ed more indi­vid­u­als in 2025 than any oth­er state, and Pennsylvania, which has not exe­cut­ed any­one in over 25 years and where a…

In an op-ed for The Black Chronicle, Demetrius Minor (pic­tured), exec­u­tive direc­tor of Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty, argues that an uptick in exe­cu­tions in 2025​“represent[s] the past more than the present as a rem­nant of our nation’s for­mer affin­i­ty for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment.” Mr. Minor’s opin­ion finds sup­port in DPI’s recent mid year review, which notes that new death sen­tences in July were low­er than they were at the same time in 2024. The better…

When Chloe Beck was called for jury duty in ear­ly 2018, she ini­tial­ly viewed it as a poten­tial break from work. But she did not antic­i­pate that the case — involv­ing a nan­ny charged with the stab­bing deaths of two chil­dren — would have last­ing effects on her men­tal health. As an alter­nate juror in the sev­en-week tri­al, Ms. Beck was required to look at crime scene pho­tographs and hear tes­ti­mo­ny from the vic­tims’ par­ents. For Ms. Beck, the expe­ri­ence proved difficult to…

In its August 29, 2025 order, the Utah Supreme Court reversed a low­er court denial of Ralph Menzies’ peti­tion for a reeval­u­a­tion of his com­pe­ten­cy — request­ed in light of Mr. Menzies wors­en­ing demen­tia — remand­ed the case for fur­ther pro­ceed­ings and vacat­ed his exe­cu­tion war­rant. Mr. Menzies had been sched­uled to die on September 5, 2025. > ​“Menzies’s vas­cu­lar demen­tia and its pro­gres­sive effects call into ques­tion whether he remains com­pe­tent to be…

This week we are fea­tur­ing some arti­cles from the first part of 2025 that we think are worth anoth­er look. We’ll be back with new arti­cles next week. This arti­cle orig­i­nal­ly ran on February 11, 2025. In June 2025, Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman request­ed that Governor Andy Beshear set an exe­cu­tion date for death row pris­on­er Ralph Baze. In a late June 2025 reply, Gov. Beshear declined to do so because of an April 2025 Franklin County Circuit Court ruling that…

This week we are fea­tur­ing some arti­cles from the first part of 2025 that we think are worth anoth­er look. We’ll be back with new arti­cles next week. This arti­cle orig­i­nal­ly ran on July 7, 2025. At the mid­point of 2025, the Death Penalty Information Center (DPI) offers this detailed analy­sis of the key facts and themes emerg­ing in the use of the death penal­ty across the U.S. For more than 30 years, DPI has been the pre­em­i­nent nation­al resource for time­ly and trustworthy…