Publications & Testimony

On September 23, 2025, North Carolina law­mak­ers approved and for­ward­ed to Governor Josh Stein for sig­na­ture House Bill 307 — also known as​“Iryna’s Law” — which pro­pos­es sweep­ing changes to the state’s crim­i­nal laws. HB 307 impos­es stricter pre­tri­al release con­di­tions, requires invol­un­tary men­tal health eval­u­a­tions for defen­dants under cer­tain cir­cum­stances, short­ens the time­line for cap­i­tal case appeals, and pro­vides an alter­na­tive to the cur­rent method of…

Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO) has report­ed that at least 1000 peo­ple have been exe­cut­ed in Iran between January 1 and September 23, 2025 — a thir­ty year high. This is the fifth con­sec­u­tive year that Iran has expe­ri­enced an increase in exe­cu­tions, with the biggest year-over-year increase (43%) occur­ring in 2023, in the after­math of the​“Women, Life, Freedom” nation­wide protests. Most exe­cu­tions con­tin­ue to be car­ried out for offens­es that do not meet the…

In a motion filed September 20, 2025, attor­neys for Luigi Mangione, indict­ed in the 2024 killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, have filed a broad chal­lenge to the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the fed­er­al death penal­ty, argu­ing that it is applied arbi­trar­i­ly, in vio­la­tion of Fifth Amendment’s due process pro­tec­tions and the Eighth Amendment’s pro­hi­bi­tion on cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ments. They are ask­ing the United States District Court in the Southern District…

40 active death war­rants have been issued in the United States thus far in 2025 — more than a third of them were issued by one indi­vid­ual, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, in a process cloaked in secre­cy. The only two states that place author­i­ty sole­ly in the hands of the gov­er­nor to issue an exe­cu­tion war­rant are Florida, which has exe­cut­ed more indi­vid­u­als in 2025 than any oth­er state, and Pennsylvania, which has not exe­cut­ed any­one in over 25 years and where a…

This week we are fea­tur­ing some arti­cles from the first part of 2025 that we think are worth anoth­er look. We’ll be back with new arti­cles next week. This arti­cle orig­i­nal­ly ran on February 11, 2025. In June 2025, Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman request­ed that Governor Andy Beshear set an exe­cu­tion date for death row pris­on­er Ralph Baze. In a late June 2025 reply, Gov. Beshear declined to do so because of an April 2025 Franklin County Circuit Court ruling that…

This week we are fea­tur­ing some arti­cles from the first part of 2025 that we think are worth anoth­er look. We’ll be back with new arti­cles next week. This arti­cle orig­i­nal­ly ran on July 7, 2025. At the mid­point of 2025, the Death Penalty Information Center (DPI) offers this detailed analy­sis of the key facts and themes emerg­ing in the use of the death penal­ty across the U.S. For more than 30 years, DPI has been the pre­em­i­nent nation­al resource for time­ly and trustworthy…

This week we are fea­tur­ing some arti­cles from the first part of 2025 that we think are worth anoth­er look. We’ll be back with new arti­cles next week. This arti­cle was orig­i­nal­ly post­ed on April 30, 2025. 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…

On August 19, 2025, the Utah Pardons Board denied Ralph Menzies’ peti­tion for com­mu­ta­tion, despite his wors­en­ing demen­tia, fail­ing health, and evi­dence that his 1988 death sen­tence​“was imposed in error” and​“obtained using per­jured tes­ti­mo­ny.” The Pardons Board was asked to com­mute his sen­tence to life with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole (LWOP). According to report­ing by the Utah News Dispatch, Utah’s Pardon Board has nev­er grant­ed clemen­cy to a death-sentenced…