Publications & Testimony

Recent report­ing from the Houston Chronicle describes a pilot pro­gram begun in February of last year which has allowed a select group of pris­on­ers on Texas’ death row the oppor­tu­ni­ty to expe­ri­ence loos­ened con­fine­ment con­di­tions. About a dozen indi­vid­u­als on Texas’ death row are being allowed to min­gle in a com­mon room, share meals, and spend time out­side of their cells with­out hand­cuffs or shack­les. As the Chronicle reports,​“instead of shout­ing to each…

> ​“The assump­tion that all vic­tims’ fam­i­lies favor the death penal­ty is so entrenched that fam­i­lies who oppose the death penal­ty some­times expe­ri­ence dis­crim­i­na­tion with­in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem from pros­e­cu­tors, judges, or court-appoint­ed vic­tims’ advo­cates.” > > Victim advo­ca­cy group, Murder Victims for Human Rights There is a com­mon­ly held belief that use of the death penal­ty is always sup­port­ed by the friends and fam­i­lies who have lost loved ones…

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 found part of Kentucky’s exe­cu­tion pro­to­col uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. Gov. Beshear indi­cat­ed that sev­er­al steps must be tak­en by the Department of Corrections (DOC) to address the issues raised by the court…

Recent leg­is­la­tion signed by Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry dras­ti­cal­ly restricts the abil­i­ty of pris­on­ers to chal­lenge their con­vic­tions, which those opposed to the law have argued could lead to the exe­cu­tion of inno­cent pris­on­ers. HB 675, signed into law in June 2025, impos­es strict time lim­its on post-con­vic­­tion relief appli­ca­tions and intro­duces​“aban­don­ment” rules that cut off appeal options for pris­on­ers who fail to meet the law’s strict dead­lines. The…

One of the most com­mon myths about the death penal­ty is that it costs less than sen­tenc­ing some­one to spend the rest of their life in a max­i­mum secu­ri­ty prison, because many assume that the state saves mon­ey when an exe­cut­ed per­son no longer requires con­fine­ment in prison, health care, or relat­ed expens­es. But this assump­tion has been repeat­ed­ly proven to be wrong. Several fac­tors con­tribute to the high cost of the death penal­ty, includ­ing prosecution and…

A new report from the ACLU doc­u­ments how the process of select­ing juries for death penal­ty cas­es sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly excludes Black prospec­tive jurors, women, and peo­ple of faith, fun­da­men­tal­ly under­min­ing the con­sti­tu­tion­al promise of a tri­al by a jury of one’s peers. The report, Fatal Flaws: Revealing the Racial and Religious Gerrymandering of the Capital Jury, exam­ines the prac­tice of​“death qual­i­fi­ca­tion,” a require­ment that poten­tial jurors must be…

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 infor­ma­tion about the death penal­ty. Its care­ful track­ing and analy­sis of death sen­tences, exe­cu­tions, leg­is­la­tion, and news­wor­thy events pro­vides crit­i­cal con­text to inform meaningful…