Publications & Testimony

A new report from the National Institute of Justice exam­ines ways to reduce and pre­vent errors, such as the wrong­ful con­vic­tion of an inno­cent per­son. The report pro­pos­es​“sen­tinel event reviews” — the exam­i­na­tion of mis­takes with a view of find­ing sys­temic prob­lems. The report uses the death penal­ty exon­er­a­tion of John Thompson in Louisiana to illus­trate its goal:​“In Connick [v. Thompson], the tri­al prosecutor withheld…

A 2014 study by Professors Cynthia Willis-Esqueda (pic­tured) of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) and Russ K.E. Espinoza of California State University found that white jurors were more like­ly to rec­om­mend a death sen­tence for Latino defen­dants than for white defen­dants in California. Researchers gave case descrip­tions to 500 white and Latino peo­ple who had report­ed for jury duty in south­ern California, then asked them to choose a sen­tence of life without…

In an op-ed for the Washington Post, Kenneth Rose, an attor­ney for the recent­ly freed Henry McCollum, expressed his frus­tra­tions with the death-penal­­ty sys­tem that allowed such mis­takes to hap­pen in the first place:​“I am angry that we live in a world where two dis­abled boys can have their lives stolen from them, where cops can lie and intim­i­date with impuni­ty, where inno­cent peo­ple can be con­demned to die and where injus­tice is so…

An inves­ti­ga­tion by St. Louis Public Radio has revealed that Missouri has been admin­is­ter­ing Midazolam to inmates pri­or to their exe­cu­tion since November 2013. Midazolam is a seda­tive that was used in all three of this year’s most seri­ous­ly botched exe­cu­tions in Ohio, Oklahoma, and Arizona. Missouri offi­cials had tes­ti­fied ear­li­er that the state had not used Midazolam in…

On September 4, Oklahoma released a report from its inves­ti­ga­tion into the botched exe­cu­tion of Clayton Lockett. The review, which was con­duct­ed by inves­ti­ga­tors from the Oklahoma Highway Patrol, found sev­er­al prob­lems that may have con­tributed to the pro­longed exe­cu­tion attempt on April 29. The exe­cu­tion was stopped by the war­den, cur­tains were drawn in the cham­ber, but the inmate died after­wards, report­ed­ly from the residues of the…

Report from the Oklahoma Department of Public Safety on the exe­cu­tion of Clayton Lockett (Sept.

Baptist min­is­ter and civ­il rights leader Rev. Al Sharpton spoke in oppo­si­tion to the death penal­ty in a recent debate at the Yale Political Union. Sharpton not­ed the dis­propo­tion of blacks who are to sen­tenced to death com­pared to whites. He also raised con­cerns about the risk of exe­cut­ing the inno­cent, point­ing out that many inmates have been exon­er­at­ed from death row. He said the low­er mur­der rates in…

UPDATE: Both defen­dants freed after judge over­turns con­vic­tions. EARLIER: Henry McCollum (l.) and Leon Brown (r.), two broth­ers who were con­vict­ed of mur­der and sen­tenced to death in 1984, may soon be freed because of evi­dence uncov­ered by the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission. McCollum was 19 and Brown was 15 when they con­fessed to the rape and mur­der of 11-year-old Sabrina Buie. Both men are intellectually…

DPIC is begin­ning a new series of pod­casts based on the his­to­ry of the death penal­ty in each state. The series will first present the states that have end­ed the death penal­ty. Three pod­casts, fea­tur­ing Michigan, Wisconsin, and Maine, are now avail­able. These short audio clips sum­ma­rize the his­to­ry sur­round­ing the repeal of the death penal­ty in those states, includ­ing famous cas­es, issues that spurred leg­is­la­tors to take…

After the botched exe­cu­tion of Clayton Lockett on April 29, Oklahoma offi­cials sent his body to Texas for an inde­pen­dent autop­sy. Now it appears that Texas will with­hold impor­tant infor­ma­tion revealed in the course of the autop­sy from the pub­lic at Oklahoma’s request. The autop­sy was per­formed by the Dallas County Medical Examiner’s Office. Earlier, Michael Thompson, Commissioner of the Oklahoma Department of Public Safety, said…