Publications & Testimony

In a recent inter­view with The Marshall Project, for­mer United States Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer dis­cussed his twen­ty-eight years of expe­ri­ence on the Court and the evo­lu­tion of his view on the death penal­ty. He explained that he did not go to the Supreme Court intend­ing to over­turn the death penal­ty, but “[i]t’s so unfair­ly admin­is­tered. There’s nei­ther rhyme nor rea­son. The whole point of this crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem is fair­ness.… I’m not say­ing, ​‘You’re all inno­cent.’ But there are a cou­ple of cas­es where I real­ly wonder.”

On March 23, Zimbabwe’s par­lia­ment passed a new ​“Patriotic Bill” which car­ries the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a death sen­tence for non-vio­lent crimes in vio­la­tion of the ​“most seri­ous crimes” inter­na­tion­al legal stan­dard. The law will pun­ish cit­i­zens whose activ­i­ties ​“will­ful­ly dam­age the sov­er­eign­ty and nation­al inter­est of Zimbabwe,” includ­ing boy­cotts, sanc­tions, and any act con­sid­ered ​“sub­ver­sion” by the state. Depending on the offense, pun­ish­ments include a loss of cit­i­zen­ship, heavy fines, impris­on­ment, and the death penal­ty – although the coun­try has not exe­cut­ed any­one since 2005 and had pre­vi­ous­ly indi­cat­ed a…

Four jurors and two alter­nates from the 2010 tri­al of Michael Tisius have said in affi­davits that they would sup­port clemen­cy in his case. Mr. Tisius is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed in Missouri on June 6, 2023. In his clemen­cy peti­tion, and in inter­views with the New York Times, the jurors said that mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence that was not pre­sent­ed at tri­al would have altered their sen­tenc­ing deci­sions. (The image to the left is art cre­at­ed by Mr. Tisius and includ­ed in his clemen­cy petition.)

Black-led orga­ni­za­tions are oppos­ing leg­isla­tive efforts in sev­er­al states to rein­tro­duce or expand use of the death penal­ty. Lawmakers in Illinois and New Jersey have intro­duced leg­is­la­tion to rein­state the death penal­ty, while oth­er leg­is­la­tors in Tennessee and Florida have pro­posed bills which would increase its use. Tennessee Senate Bill 1112 would require an exe­cu­tion to be car­ried out with­in 30 days of sen­tenc­ing. Governor DeSantis recent­ly signed leg­is­la­tion that nul­li­fied jury una­nim­i­ty by requir­ing only eight jurors to rec­om­mend a death sen­tence, and Senate Bill 1342 would pre­vent a Florida judge…

Florida’s recent deci­sion to allow death sen­tences with­out a unan­i­mous jury rec­om­men­da­tion increas­es the risk of exe­cut­ing an inno­cent per­son, accord­ing to con­ser­v­a­tive com­men­ta­tor Christian Schneider (pic­tured). In a May 25, 2023 col­umn for The National Review, Schneider argues that con­ser­v­a­tives should oppose the law that allows a death sen­tence to be imposed when only eight jurors agree.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni’s (pic­tured) deci­sion to sign the Anti-Homosexuality Act 2023 on May 29 has drawn wide­spread inter­na­tion­al crit­i­cism. The new law pre­scribes that peo­ple con­vict­ed of ​“aggra­vat­ed homo­sex­u­al­i­ty” may now be pun­ished with a death sen­tence. Although same-sex rela­tion­ships were already ille­gal in the coun­try, the new law, which passed with the sup­port of 341 out of 389 mem­bers of par­lia­ment, includes harsh­er pun­ish­ments for ​“pro­mot­ing” homo­sex­u­al­i­ty and engag­ing in same-sex rela­tions. Uganda last car­ried out an exe­cu­tion in 2005.

In the lat­est episode of Discussions with DPIC, Anne Holsinger, Managing Director of DPIC, inter­views Dr. Sally Satel (pic­tured), a psy­chi­a­trist and senior fel­low at the American Enterprise Institute. She shares her insights on the role of severe men­tal ill­ness in death penal­ty cases. 

On May 25, 2023, 12 death-qual­i­fied jurors and six alter­nates were select­ed in the fed­er­al cap­i­tal tri­al of Robert Bowers, who is charged with killing 11 wor­ship­pers at a Pittsburgh syn­a­gogue in 2018. Prosecutors struck all the Black, Hispanic, and Jewish venire mem­bers. As tes­ti­mo­ny begins on May 30, some vic­tims’ fam­i­ly mem­bers have expressed sup­port for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, while oth­ers have objected.

“[W]e have come over time to see the flaws in our nation’s jus­tice sys­tem and to view the state’s death penal­ty laws in par­tic­u­lar as legal­ly and moral­ly trou­bling,” wrote two for­mer gov­er­nors of Alabama in an op-ed for the Washington Post. Republican Robert Bentley (pic­tured, right) and Democrat Don Siegelman (pic­tured, left) agree that the 146 peo­ple whose death sen­tences were imposed by non-unan­i­mous juries or judi­cial over­ride should have their sen­tences com­mut­ed. ​“We missed our chance to con­front the death penal­ty and have lived to regret it,” they wrote,…

Former fed­er­al Oklahoma pros­e­cu­tors Patrick Ryan and Daniel Webber co-authored an edi­to­r­i­al in The Oklahoman on May 17, 2023 express­ing seri­ous con­cerns about Richard Glossip’s con­vic­tion and death sen­tence. The writ­ers not­ed that a prosecutor’s duty ​“is not to win a case, but to ensure jus­tice is done,” and con­clud­ed that ​“the state did not fol­low these fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ples in obtain­ing Richard Glossip’s 1998 and 2004 con­vic­tions and death sen­tences.” The for­mer pros­e­cu­tors col­lec­tive­ly served Oklahoma between 1995 – 2001, and Mr. Ryan pros­e­cut­ed and sought the death penal­ty for Timothy McVeigh and…