Publications & Testimony

The sin­gle most com­mon out­come for a death sen­tence in the mod­ern era is for it to be reversed on appeal due to a con­sti­tu­tion­al vio­la­tion. Most peo­ple whose sen­tences are reversed get resen­tenced to life in prison or less, but some pros­e­cu­tors per­sist in seek­ing new death sen­tences even after mul­ti­ple rever­sals. A Death Penalty Information Center analy­sis of the 14 peo­ple sen­tenced to death four or more times for the same crime finds that prosecutorial…

Recent atten­tion on the fed­er­al death penal­ty is high­light­ing the diverse opin­ions of vic­tims’ fam­i­lies who have lost loved ones to vio­lence. Like Americans from all walks of life, vic­tims’ fam­i­lies hold a diverse set of views on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, shaped by their indi­vid­ual faith, polit­i­cal views, and per­son­al reac­tion to being impact­ed by crime. Some sup­port the death penal­ty, and oth­ers oppose it. Some vic­tims’ fam­i­ly mem­bers are part of organizations…

On April 29, 2025, U.S. District Judge Debora K. Grasham ordered the Idaho Department of Corrections (IDOC) to give media wit­ness­es to an exe­cu­tion​“audio and visu­al access to the prepa­ra­tion and admin­is­tra­tion of the lethal injec­tion drugs.” The rul­ing stems from a December 2024 law­suit filed by the Associated Press, The Idaho Statesman, and East Idaho News, which argued that media out­lets were being uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly pro­hib­it­ed from view­ing​“key steps” in Idaho’s…

In com­mem­o­ra­tion of the 20^th anniver­sary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s land­mark deci­sion end­ing the juve­nile death penal­ty, the Death Penalty Information Center (DPI) today released a new report: Immature Minds in a​“Maturing Society”: Roper v. Simmons at 20, detail­ing grow­ing sup­port that indi­vid­u­als ages 18, 19, and 20 should receive the same age-appro­pri­ate con­sid­er­a­tions that juve­niles now receive in death penal­ty cas­es. > [T]here is no bright line regarding…

The Supreme Court has con­sis­tent­ly held that​“death is dif­fer­ent”: the​“qual­i­ta­tive dif­fer­ence between death and oth­er penal­ties calls for a greater degree of reli­a­bil­i­ty when the death sen­tence is imposed.” As a result, cap­i­tal defen­dants pur­sue a series of manda­to­ry and dis­cre­tionary appeals to ensure that mis­takes of con­sti­tu­tion­al sig­nif­i­cance are iden­ti­fied and cor­rect­ed. However, death-sen­­tenced pris­on­ers in Louisiana recent­ly argued that the…

One fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ple of fair­ness upon which our crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem relies is the notion that pros­e­cu­tors must dis­close excul­pa­to­ry, mate­r­i­al evi­dence favor­able to defen­dants. This Constitutional oblig­a­tion, estab­lished in Brady v. Maryland (1963), rep­re­sents a crit­i­cal safe­guard against wrong­ful con­vic­tions. Nevertheless, Brady vio­la­tions remain dis­turbing­ly com­mon, with dev­as­tat­ing con­se­quences for defen­dants who may spend years or…