Publications & Testimony

On June 13, 2023, 51 of the 57 peo­ple on Louisiana’s death row filed clemen­cy appli­ca­tions with the Louisiana Board of Pardons and Committee on Parole, ask­ing Governor John Bel Edwards to com­mute their sen­tences to life with­out parole. The clemen­cy appli­ca­tions describe flaws in the indi­vid­ual cas­es – includ­ing men­tal ill­ness and intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty, inno­cence claims, and offi­cial mis­con­duct – but cumu­la­tive­ly por­tray a death penal­ty sys­tem marked by sig­nif­i­cant sys­temic prob­lems. The…

In Seventy Times Seven: A True Story of Murder and Mercy, author Alex Mar presents an in-depth account of a vio­lent homi­cide and its impact on a racial­ly divid­ed com­mu­ni­ty and the indi­vid­u­als involved. Mar not only dis­cuss­es the fears asso­ci­at­ed with mod­ern crime and pun­ish­ment but also address­es the human capac­i­ty for com­pas­sion and for­give­ness. In the pro­logue, Mar writes that ​“this is a sto­ry that asks what any com­mu­ni­ty is will­ing to accept as just con­se­quences — as…

Duane Owen is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed in Florida on June 15, 2023. If it occurs, his exe­cu­tion will be the fourth exe­cu­tion in Florida this year, after a three year pause in exe­cu­tions due to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. Mr. Owen was con­vict­ed in 1986 of crimes that occurred in…

New data from AH Datalytics shows ​“sharp and broad decline” in mur­der rates for 2023. In a recent arti­cle pub­lished in The Atlantic, Jeff Asher (pic­tured), a crime ana­lyst based in New Orleans and co-founder of AH Datalytics, writes that the decline in mur­der rates across the United States is ​“one of the largest annu­al per­cent changes in mur­der ever…

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…

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,…

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…

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…

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…

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…