Publications & Testimony

A new report from the Texas Defender Service (TDS) titled ​“Arbitrary and Capricious: Examining Racial Disparities in Harris County’s Pursuit of Death Sentences” was pub­lished on February 22, 2024 and is the lat­est in series of TDS reports on use of the death penal­ty in Texas. The report focus­es on Harris County’s out­lier death penal­ty prac­tices, both with­in the state and nation­al­ly. While more than half of the 254 coun­ties in Texas have nev­er imposed a death sen­tence, Harris County is…

A new report from Berkeley Law’s Death Penalty Clinic finds that just 19 states col­lect race and eth­nic­i­ty infor­ma­tion from prospec­tive jurors, mean­ing that a major­i­ty of states can­not ensure that their juries are a ​“rep­re­sen­ta­tive cross-sec­tion of the com­mu­ni­ty” as man­dat­ed by the Constitution. The report, Guess Who’s Coming to Jury Duty?, rec­om­mends that all states ​“adopt a uni­form ques­tion­naire” to obtain prospec­tive jurors’ race or eth­nic­i­ty and that state courts annually publish…

Beginning February 28, 2024, a Johnston County, North Carolina, tri­al court will hear death row pris­on­er Hasson Bacote’s claims that racial dis­crim­i­na­tion in jury selec­tion played a role in his cap­i­tal sen­tenc­ing. In 2009, North Carolina passed the Racial Justice Act (RJA), which allowed death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers to chal­lenge their sen­tences if they could demon­strate that race played a role in their sen­tenc­ing and jury selec­tion. Sentenced to death in 2009 by a near­ly all-white jury, Mr.

This month, DPIC cel­e­brates Black History Month with week­ly pro­files of notable Black Americans whose work affect­ed the mod­ern death penal­ty era. The third in this series is for­mer Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins, who died on December 12,…

Ivan Cantu is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed on February 28, 2024, although Texas courts have refused to con­sid­er new evi­dence in his case that may prove he was wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed. Mr. Cantu was sen­tenced to death in Collin County for the mur­der of his cousin and his cousin’s fiancée in November 2000. Texas sched­uled an exe­cu­tion date for Mr. Cantu in April 2023, but a last-minute appeal describ­ing new evi­dence of false wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny pro­vid­ed grounds for a stay of exe­cu­tion. However, the…

Florida death-row exoneree Robert DuBoise (pic­tured) will receive $14 mil­lion from the city of Tampa as com­pen­sa­tion for the 37 years he was incar­cer­at­ed for a rape and mur­der he did not com­mit. On February 15, 2024, the Tampa City Council unan­i­mous­ly vot­ed to approve the set­tle­ment. The set­tle­ment resolved a 2021 suit Mr. DuBoise filed against the City of Tampa, four Tampa police offi­cers, and the foren­sic odon­tol­o­gist who tes­ti­fied against him. The suit alleged that the officers and…

In a February 14, 2024 op-ed pub­lished in the Washington Post, the long­time defense lawyer, for­mer direc­tor of the Southern Center for Human Rights, and law pro­fes­sor Stephen Bright high­lights the con­tin­ued ille­gal exclu­sion of Black jurors in vio­la­tion of Batson v. Kennedy (1986). The op-ed titled, ​“Struck from a jury for being Black? It still hap­pens all too often,” uses the case of Georgia death-sen­tenced pris­on­er Warren King, whose peti­tion the U.S. Supreme Court is expect­ed to review on…

This month, DPIC cel­e­brates Black History Month with week­ly pro­files of notable Black Americans whose work affect­ed the mod­ern death penal­ty era. The sec­ond in the series is Professor Jennifer…

In this month’s episode of Discussions with DPIC, Managing Director Anne Holsinger speaks with Keri Blakinger, a jour­nal­ist at the Los Angeles Times and for­mer reporter for the Marshall Project — a non­prof­it news orga­ni­za­tion focused on the U.S. crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem. At the Marshall Project, Ms. Blakinger wrote sto­ries about the human beings in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem — a focus that is still a pri­or­i­ty in her report­ing with the Los…

On February 13, 2024, the 3^rd District Court of Salt Lake City, Utah ruled that evi­dence pre­sent­ed by Ralph Menzies’ attor­neys of his demen­tia and cog­ni­tive decline requires a for­mal assess­ment of his com­pe­ten­cy to face exe­cu­tion by fir­ing squad. With its deci­sion, the court also vacat­ed a hear­ing sched­uled for February 23, at which the state of Utah intend­ed to request an exe­cu­tion war­rant for Mr. Menzies. As explained in his request for a com­pe­ten­cy hear­ing, Mr. Menzies has been diagnosed…