Publications & Testimony

Juneteenth is a cel­e­bra­tion and remem­brance of the end of slav­ery in the United States fol­low­ing the Union’s vic­to­ry in the Civil War. In June 2021, President Joseph Biden signed leg­is­la­tion estab­lish­ing Juneteenth as a fed­er­al hol­i­day, for­mal­ly com­mem­o­rat­ing the end of slav­ery. According to President Biden, ​“Juneteenth marks both the long, hard night of slav­ery and sub­ju­ga­tion, and the promise of a greater morn­ing to come.” Among the many groups com­mem­o­rat­ing Juneteenth was Conservatives…

On June 22, 2023, the Death Penalty Information Center released Doomed to Repeat: How Racial History Informs Tennessee’s Death Penalty, a report plac­ing the state’s death penal­ty sys­tem in his­tor­i­cal con­text. Below are ten impor­tant facts from the report that should inform future deci­sions about the use of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in…

On June 15, 2023, Arizona death-sen­tenced pris­on­er Barry Jones was freed after serv­ing 29 years for a crime that the Arizona Attorney General agreed he did not com­mit. Mr. Jones was sen­tenced to death in 1995 after being con­vict­ed of mur­der­ing his girlfriend’s four-year-old daugh­ter in 1994. Medical evi­dence that was read­i­ly avail­able at the time of tri­al showed that the child did not sus­tain her fatal inter­nal injuries dur­ing the time while she was in Mr. Jones’s care. But this evi­dence was…

On June 15, 2023, five ami­cus briefs were filed with the United States Supreme Court in sup­port of Robert Roberson (pic­tured with his daugh­ter, Nikki), a Texas death-sen­tenced pris­on­er who has long claimed to be inno­cent of caus­ing the death of his daugh­ter. Mr. Roberson filed his peti­tion with the Supreme Court on May 11^th after the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) denied his request for a new tri­al despite the pre­sen­ta­tion of new sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence that sound­ly dis­cred­it­ed the ​“shak­en…

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,…