Publications & Testimony

On July 25, 2023, Ghana’s par­lia­ment vot­ed to abol­ish the death penal­ty. Although the death penal­ty would remain in the con­sti­tu­tion for acts of trea­son, the new law would remove the death penal­ty as pos­si­ble pun­ish­ment for mur­der, geno­cide, pira­cy, and smug­gling. The cur­rent 176 death row pris­on­ers, includ­ing six women, would have their sen­tences com­mut­ed to life in prison. Last year sev­en peo­ple were sen­tenced to death despite Ghana not hav­ing car­ried out an exe­cu­tion since…

On July 29, 2023, the 8^th Circuit Court of Appeals lift­ed a tem­po­rary stay of exe­cu­tion that had been issued for Johnny Johnson, a death-sen­tenced pris­on­er in Missouri. Mr. Johnson’s attor­neys allege that he is insane and there­fore inel­i­gi­ble for exe­cu­tion. Barring a last-minute stay from the U.S. Supreme Court, Mr. Johnson will be exe­cut­ed by lethal injec­tion on August 1, 2023, for the 2002 killing of 6‑year-old Casey…

The Death Penalty Information Center has cre­at­ed a web­page ded­i­cat­ed to restora­tive jus­tice, a sen­tenc­ing alter­na­tive in crim­i­nal cas­es, includ­ing lim­it­ed use in death penal­ty cas­es. This resource high­lights the foun­da­tions of restora­tive jus­tice, com­mon approach­es, recent stud­ies relat­ed to the prac­tice, and exam­ples of its…

On July 24, 2023, the Louisiana Board of Pardons and Parole set aside all 56 clemen­cy appli­ca­tions filed by near­ly every death-sen­tenced pris­on­er in Louisiana last month with­out review­ing the mer­its of a sin­gle one of them. The pris­on­ers asked for their sen­tences to be com­mut­ed to life with­out parole, but the Board made its deci­sion to return the appli­ca­tions based on an advi­so­ry, non­bind­ing opin­ion from the Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry. Attorneys for death row pris­on­ers have…

On July 21, 2023, Alabama death row pris­on­er James Barber was exe­cut­ed two hours after the U.S. Supreme Court denied his motion for a stay in a 6 – 3 deci­sion. This marks the state’s first exe­cu­tion since a series of three botched exe­cu­tions in 2022 and an inter­nal inves­ti­ga­tion into the Alabama Department of Corrections’ (ADOC) execution…

The American Bar Association’s Criminal Justice Section has announced its forth­com­ing annu­al report, The State of Criminal Justice 2023, exam­in­ing the state of the American crim­i­nal legal…

In the July 2023 episode of Discussions with DPIC, Anne Holsinger, Managing Director of DPIC, speaks with Kirk Bloodsworth (pic­tured), the first per­son exon­er­at­ed from death row by DNA evi­dence. Mr. Bloodsworth reflects on the thir­ty years since his exon­er­a­tion and dis­cuss­es the expe­ri­ence of being wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed. He also describes the work he and oth­er exonerees have done, and how the issue of inno­cence has affect­ed leg­is­la­tion on the death…

A week after Governor Ron DeSantis sched­uled his exe­cu­tion, Florida death-sen­tenced pris­on­er James Barnes (pic­tured) dis­charged his lawyers and waived his appeals. His exe­cu­tion will now pro­ceed on August 3, 2023. Since February 23, 2023, Florida has exe­cut­ed four pris­on­ers. Mr. Barnes will be the fifth pris­on­er exe­cut­ed by Florida this year and the tenth volunteer…

On July 18, 2023, after about nine hours of delib­er­a­tion, a Texas jury sen­tenced for­mer Supervisory United States Border Patrol agent Ronald Anthony Burgos-Aviles, age 34, to life with­out parole (LWOP) instead of death for the 2018 dou­ble mur­der of Grizelda Hernandez, age 27, and their son Dominic Alexander, age 1. This sen­tenc­ing ver­dict occurred in a high-use death penal­ty state; Texas has car­ried out the great­est num­ber of exe­cu­tions, at 583, of any state since 1976. But over the last two…

On July 17, 2023, a Shelby County Criminal Court judge struck down a new statute, passed by the Tennessee Legislature in April 2023, to expand author­i­ty of the appoint­ed state attor­ney gen­er­al in death penal­ty cas­es. Judge Paula Skahan ruled that the law uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly removes the pow­er of the local­ly elect­ed dis­trict attor­ney. Some attor­neys and law­mak­ers who dis­agreed with the new statute ear­li­er expressed con­cerns that the new law tar­get­ed pro­gres­sive dis­trict attor­neys who were…