Publications & Testimony

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 before the state is…

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 law goes into effect on August 1…

On July 7, 2025, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of former Virginia death-sentenced prisoner Justin Wolfe, vacating a lower court dismissal of his most recent habeas petition, and paving the way for a new hearing where Mr. Wolfe will have the opportunity to provide new evidence in support of his innocence. Mr. Wolfe was convicted and sentenced to death in 2002 for the 2001 murder-for-hire of his cannabis supplier in Northern Virginia. In his most recent petition, counsel for…

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 defense costs at trial, high…

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 willing to impose a death sentence to serve on…

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 public debate and sound policy…

In this month’s podcast episode of 12:01 The Death Penalty in Context, DPI’s Managing Director Anne Holsinger speaks with Sam Levin, a correspondent with The Guardian who covers criminal justice and the legal system, and Jimmy Jenkins, a criminal justice reporter for The Arizona Republic, about the challenges they encounter when reporting on the increasing secretive use of the death penalty. Mr. Jenkins has witnessed executions in Arizona and Mr. Levin has recently investigated South Carolina’s…

On June 25, 2025, Vietnam’s National Assembly approved a measure introduced by the government to reduce the number of death-eligible offenses from 18 to 10. Effective July 1, 2025, the formerly capital crimes of illegal drug transport, production and sale of counterfeit medicine, embezzlement, accepting bribes, espionage, jeopardizing peace and waging war, and vandalizing state property will be punishable by life imprisonment. Prisoners already sentenced to death for these offenses will have…

On June 26, 2025, more than 200 Californians and representatives of civil rights organizations gathered at the state Capitol to urge California Governor Gavin Newsom to commute all death sentences. Speakers at the gathering called California’s death penalty statute unconstitutional and noted persistent evidence of racial bias, historic ties to lynching, ineffective protection of innocent lives, and high costs. California, home to the nation’s largest death row, is currently experiencing an…