Publications & Testimony

In light of the FBI’s acknowl­edge­ment in April that flawed foren­sic tes­ti­mo­ny by its expert hair-com­par­i­son ana­lysts had taint­ed at least 268 cas­es, includ­ing 32 death penal­ty cas­es, foren­sic sci­ence is com­ing under increased scruti­ny. A com­men­tary in the Boston Review argues that ​“mount­ing hor­ror sto­ries,” includ­ing instances of crime-lab ​“cor­rup­tion and dys­func­tion, have cre­at­ed a moment of cri­sis in foren­sic sci­ence.” Referencing ​“scores of…

Both exe­cu­tions and new death sen­tences in the United States are on pace for sig­nif­i­cant declines to their low­est lev­els in a gen­er­a­tion, Reuters reports. With 25 exe­cu­tions con­duct­ed so far this year, and only two more sched­uled, the United States could have its low­est num­ber of exe­cu­tions since 1991, sig­nif­i­cant­ly below the peak of 98 exe­cu­tions in 1999. Only 8 states have car­ried out exe­cu­tions in the last two years, down from a high of 20, also in 1999. New death sen­tences, which peaked…

A three-judge pan­el of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9^th Circuit has over­turned a California fed­er­al dis­trict court deci­sion that had declared California’s death penal­ty uncon­sti­tu­tion­al, say­ing that the issue pre­sent­ed ​“a nov­el con­sti­tu­tion­al rule” that was beyond the pow­er of the fed­er­al courts to address in a habeas cor­pus pro­ceed­ing. The appeals court did not address the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of California’s death penal­ty, say­ing that because of tech­ni­cal pro­ce­dur­al rules…

Robert Patton (pic­tured), the direc­tor of the Oklahoma Department of Corrections who over­saw the botched exe­cu­tion of Clayton Lockett, the use of the wrong third drug in the exe­cu­tion of Charles Warner, and the failed exe­cu­tion of Richard Glossip, was also involved in a num­ber of Arizona exe­cu­tions that vio­lat­ed that state’s exe­cu­tion pro­to­col, a BuzzFeed investigation…

In an op-ed for USA Today, three retired gen­er­als call for sys­temic review of the sta­tus of vet­er­ans on death row nation­wide and urge deci­sion-mak­ers in cap­i­tal cas­es to seri­ous­ly con­sid­er the men­tal health effects of ser­vice-relat­ed PTSD in deter­min­ing whether to pur­sue or to impose the death penal­ty against mil­i­tary vet­er­ans. Calling DPIC’s new report, ​“Battle Scars: Military Veterans and the Death Penalty,” ​“a wake-up call for an issue that few have focused on,”…

On November 10, on the eve of Veterans’ Day, the Death Penalty Information Center released a new report, Battle Scars: Military Veterans and the Death Penalty. The report exam­ines the plight of U.S. mil­i­tary vet­er­ans who have been sen­tenced to death, esti­mat­ing that about 300 vet­er­ans are cur­rent­ly on death row. Many of these vet­er­ans suf­fer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) or oth­er men­tal dis­abil­i­ties caused or exac­er­bat­ed by their time in…

On November 8, 1965, 50 years ago, the United Kingdom abol­ished cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. On that date, Parliament trans­mit­ted to Queen Elizabeth II for roy­al assent the Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act of 1965. The Act, which end­ed cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in England, Wales, and Scotland sub­ject to Parliamentary review after 5 years, took effect on November 9, 1965. When Parliament con­firmed the Act in December 1969, the abo­li­tion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the United Kingdom became per­ma­nent. The…

Calling the pun­ish­ment ​“sim­ply wrong,” United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon has vowed to ​“nev­er stop call­ing for an end to the death penal­ty.” Speaking at the launch of a new book by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, ​“Moving Away from the Death Penalty: Arguments, Trends and Perspectives,” the Secretary-General high­light­ed the world­wide decline of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, not­ing that ​“more and more coun­tries and States are abol­ish­ing the death penal­ty.” Data from the…

Oklahoma County has exe­cut­ed 41 pris­on­ers since 1976, the third high­est in the coun­try, and is among the 2% of American coun­ties respon­si­ble for 56% of the men and women cur­rent­ly on the nation’s death rows. A ThinkProgress report chron­i­cles the decades-long pat­tern of mis­con­duct com­mit­ted under its long-time District Attorney ​“Cowboy Bob” Macy…