Publications & Testimony

Six months into 2016, the pace of exe­cu­tions in the United States remains at the same lev­el as the 24-year low set in 2015. Fourteen exe­cu­tions have been car­ried out so far this year in five states — Texas (6), Georgia (5), and one each in Alabama, Florida, and Missouri — while 23 oth­er sched­uled exe­cu­tions have been halt­ed by stays or reprieves. States car­ried out 28…

A new report by Harvard Law School’s Fair Punishment Project has found that a small num­ber of overzeal­ous pros­e­cu­tors with high rates of mis­con­duct have a huge­ly dis­pro­por­tion­ate impact on the death penal­ty in the United States. The report, America’s Top Five Deadliest Prosecutors: How Overzealous Personalities Drive the Death Penalty, shows that, by them­selves, these pros­e­cu­tors are respon­si­ble for more than 440 death sen­tences, the equiv­a­lent of 15% of the entire U.S. death row…

In his new book, Executing Grace, evan­gel­i­cal Christian speak­er, activist, and author Shane Claiborne weaves togeth­er per­son­al nar­ra­tives, the­ol­o­gy, and research to make a Christian case against the death penal­ty. Claiborne says “[t]he death penal­ty did not flour­ish in America in spite of Christians but because of us.” Arguing that “[w]e can’t make death penal­ty his­to­ry until we make death penal­ty per­son­al,” he tells the sto­ries of people…

In a court fil­ing in the fed­er­al law­suit chal­leng­ing its exe­cu­tion pro­ce­dures, Arizona offi­cials have declared that the state does not have the drugs nec­es­sary to car­ry out an exe­cu­tion, and is cur­rent­ly unable to obtain them. The fil­ing states, ​“the Department’s lack of the drugs and its cur­rent inabil­i­ty to obtain these drugs means that the Department is present­ly inca­pable of car­ry­ing out an…

A divid­ed Arkansas Supreme Court vot­ed 4 – 3 on June 23 to uphold the state’s lethal injec­tion pro­to­col and secre­cy pol­i­cy. The deci­sion poten­tial­ly opens the path for the state to move for­ward with eight exe­cu­tions that had been stayed pend­ing the out­come of this lit­i­ga­tion. However, it is unclear whether exe­cu­tions will resume because Arkansas’ sup­ply of lethal injec­tion drugs expires on June 30, and the sup­pli­er from which it obtained those drugs has indi­cat­ed that it will…

The pace of exe­cu­tions in Georgia is out­strip­ping the pace of death sen­tences. While the num­ber of exe­cu­tions this year (5) is equal to the sin­gle-year record set in 1987 and 2015, no one has been sen­tenced to death in more than two years, and pros­e­cu­tors are rarely seek­ing death sen­tences. The last death sen­tence in Georgia came down in March 2014. The num­ber of notices of intent to seek the death penal­ty has fall­en by more than 60% in the last decade, from 34 in 2006 to 13…

Pennsylvania’s tax­pay­ers have paid an esti­mat­ed $272 mil­lion per exe­cu­tion since the Commonwealth rein­stat­ed its death penal­ty in 1978, accord­ing to an inves­ti­ga­tion by The Reading Eagle. Using data from a 2008 study by the Urban Institute, the Eagle cal­cu­lat­ed that cost of sen­tenc­ing 408 peo­ple to death was an esti­mat­ed $816 mil­lion high­er than the cost of life with­out parole. The esti­mate is con­ser­v­a­tive, the paper says, because it assumes only one cap­i­tal tri­al for each…

The U.S. Supreme Court grant­ed writs of cer­tio­rari in three jury dis­crim­i­na­tion cas­es on June 20, vacat­ing each of them and direct­ing state courts in Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana to recon­sid­er the issue in light of the Court’s recent deci­sion in Foster v. Chatman. Two of the peti­tion­ers, Curtis Flowers of Mississippi and Christopher Floyd of Alabama, are cur­rent­ly on death row. The third, Jabari Williams, was con­vict­ed in Louisiana of second-degree murder.