Publications & Testimony

By the time 21-year-old Clarence Curtis Jordan shot a man dur­ing a gro­cery store bur­glary in 1977, he had been strug­gling for most of his life with hal­lu­ci­na­tions and intel­lec­tu­al deficits. His IQ score placed him in the bot­tom 0.5% of the pop­u­la­tion. He iden­ti­fied the pres­i­dent as​“John Hill” and said he often saw​“old, weird, burnt-up look­ing peo­ple” watch­ing him. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) found him incom­pe­tent to be exe­cut­ed in 1988. But Mr.

On April 7, 2026, a Cuyahoga County judge vacat­ed the death sen­tence of Charles Maxwell and ordered his resen­tenc­ing to life in prison with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole. After an evi­den­tiary hear­ing, the court found that Mr. Maxwell suf­fered from delu­sion­al dis­or­der, caused by sev­er­al trau­mat­ic brain injuries, at the time of the crime for which he was sen­tenced to death. According to data from the Ohio Attorney General’s office, Mr. Maxwell’s resen­tenc­ing marks the…

2025 marked the high­est num­ber of drug-relat­ed exe­cu­tions world­wide since Harm Reduction International (HRI) began report­ing num­bers in 2007. In its new report, The Death Penalty for Drug Offenses: Global Overview 2025, HRI explains that a​“small but res­olute group of coun­tries” are respon­si­ble for a record 1,212 exe­cu­tions, which is like­ly an under­count due to secre­cy laws in the high appli­ca­tion nations of China, North Korea, and Vietnam pre­vent­ing disclosure of…

With weeks left before his sched­uled exe­cu­tion on May 21, 2026, coun­sel for Tennessee death-sen­­tenced pris­on­er Tony Carruthers has asked the Tennessee Supreme Court to order DNA test­ing that they argue could prove their client’s inno­cence. On April 9, lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed an emer­gency motion seek­ing DNA test­ing​“on spe­cif­ic pieces of pro­ba­tive phys­i­cal evi­dence, most of which has nev­er been test­ed, and which will like­ly point to…

DPI’s​“What to Know” series exam­ines cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment from mul­ti­ple angles, one top­ic at a time. Each install­ment pro­vides essen­tial facts and data on spe­cif­ic aspects of the death penal­ty. Why it mat­ters:The race of vic­tims weighs heav­i­ly in cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment deci­sions. Studies con­firm that defen­dants with white vic­tims are more like­ly to be charged cap­i­tal­ly, sen­tenced to death, have those sen­tences upheld on appeal, and be exe­cut­ed. ​“The strongest…

On March 30, 2026, law­mak­ers in Israel passed the Death Penalty for Terrorists Law by a vote of 62 to 48, mak­ing Israel one of few democ­ra­cies to expand cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in recent years. The law man­dates death by hang­ing for offens­es clas­si­fied as​“ter­ror­ism relat­ed” — and as writ­ten, applies exclu­sive­ly to Palestinians. The new law also requires that sen­tences must be car­ried out with­in 90 days of a final rul­ing. UN experts have warned that under international…

In a February 2026 arti­cle pub­lished in the Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law, Professor Deborah Denno charts how exe­cu­tion meth­ods in the United States​“have become cru­el­er” over the past fifty years. Her arti­cle details exe­cu­tion pro­ce­dures adopt­ed across death penal­ty states from 1977 to 2025, ana­lyz­ing their soci­etal and cul­tur­al under­pin­nings, and expos­ing their​“flaws, unsci­en­tif­ic ori­gins, and reliance on unqual­i­fied exe­cu­tion­ers.” > ​“Boyd asks for the…

DPI’s​“What to Know” series exam­ines cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment from mul­ti­ple angles, one top­ic at a time. Each install­ment pro­vides essen­tial facts and data on spe­cif­ic aspects of the death penal­ty. Why it mat­ters: While the U.S. Supreme Court has barred the exe­cu­tion of indi­vid­u­als with intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ties, no such cat­e­gor­i­cal ban exists for those with severe men­tal ill­ness (SMI). Consequently, peo­ple suf­fer­ing from active psy­chosis, delu­sions, or…