Publications & Testimony

On February 27, 2024, Common Pleas Court Judge Barbara A. McDermott approved a motion from the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office to dis­miss first-degree mur­der, arson, and aggra­vat­ed assault charges against 54-year-old death-sen­­tenced pris­on­er Daniel Gwynn. Mr. Gwynn is the 197^th per­son exon­er­at­ed after being sen­tenced to death since 1973, accord­ing to DPIC’s Innocence Database.​“Today is most­ly for us a day of tremen­dous relief and sad­ness, a guy like him, an innocent…

Thomas Creech and…

This month, DPIC cel­e­brates Black History Month with week­ly pro­files of notable Black Americans whose work affect­ed the mod­ern death penal­ty era. The fourth and final entry in this series is lawyer and civ­il rights activist Elaine Jones, for­mer pres­i­dent and direc­­tor-coun­sel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and coun­sel of record in Furman v.

A new report from the Texas Defender Service (TDS) titled​“Arbitrary and Capricious: Examining Racial Disparities in Harris County’s Pursuit of Death Sentences” was pub­lished on February 22, 2024 and is the lat­est in series of TDS reports on use of the death penal­ty in Texas. The report focus­es on Harris County’s out­lier death penal­ty prac­tices, both with­in the state and nation­al­ly. While more than half of the 254 coun­ties in Texas have nev­er imposed a death sen­tence, Harris…

Beginning February 28, 2024, a Johnston County, North Carolina, tri­al court will hear death row pris­on­er Hasson Bacote’s claims that racial dis­crim­i­na­tion in jury selec­tion played a role in his cap­i­tal sen­tenc­ing. In 2009, North Carolina passed the Racial Justice Act (RJA), which allowed death-sen­­tenced pris­on­ers to chal­lenge their sen­tences if they could demon­strate that race played a role in their sen­tenc­ing and jury selec­tion. Sentenced to death in 2009 by a nearly…

This month, DPIC cel­e­brates Black History Month with week­ly pro­files of notable Black Americans whose work affect­ed the mod­ern death penal­ty era. The third in this series is for­mer Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins, who died on December…

Ivan Cantu is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed on February 28, 2024, although Texas courts have refused to con­sid­er new evi­dence in his case that may prove he was wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed. Mr. Cantu was sen­tenced to death in Collin County for the mur­der of his cousin and his cousin’s fiancée in November 2000. Texas sched­uled an exe­cu­tion date for Mr. Cantu in April 2023, but a last-minute appeal describ­ing new evi­dence of false wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny pro­vid­ed grounds for a stay of…

Florida death-row exoneree Robert DuBoise (pic­tured) will receive $14 mil­lion from the city of Tampa as com­pen­sa­tion for the 37 years he was incar­cer­at­ed for a rape and mur­der he did not com­mit. On February 15, 2024, the Tampa City Council unan­i­mous­ly vot­ed to approve the set­tle­ment. The set­tle­ment resolved a 2021 suit Mr. DuBoise filed against the City of Tampa, four Tampa police offi­cers, and the foren­sic odon­tol­o­gist who tes­ti­fied against him. The suit alleged that…

In a February 14, 2024 op-ed pub­lished in the Washington Post, the long­time defense lawyer, for­mer direc­tor of the Southern Center for Human Rights, and law pro­fes­sor Stephen Bright high­lights the con­tin­ued ille­gal exclu­sion of Black jurors in vio­la­tion of Batson v. Kennedy (1986). The op-ed titled,​“Struck from a jury for being Black? It still hap­pens all too often,” uses the case of Georgia death-sen­­tenced pris­on­er Warren King, whose peti­tion the U.S. Supreme Court is…