Publications & Testimony

The Constitution man­dates that juries be drawn from a​“fair cross-sec­­tion” of the com­mu­ni­ty. Yet pub­lic opin­ion polls show that a sub­stan­tial por­tion of the com­mu­ni­ty oppos­es the death penal­ty. How, then, can the gov­ern­ment seat a jury that will fair­ly decide whether to impose the death penal­ty and pro­tect a defendant’s con­sti­tu­tion­al jury rights? The legal system’s long­stand­ing answer to this ques­tion is a pro­ce­dure called​“death qual­i­fi­ca­tion,” which…

“I am extreme­ly con­cerned by the recent pace of death war­rants and the speed with which the par­ties and involved enti­ties must car­ry out their respec­tive duties.” Florida Supreme Court Justice Jorge Labarga wrote those words in 2023, a year in which Florida con­duct­ed six exe­cu­tions with an aver­age war­rant peri­od of 36 days. Such a pace was already strain­ing the state’s judi­cial, legal, and prison sys­tems. But in 2025, under the sole author­i­ty of Governor Ron DeSantis, the…

February 21, 2006, a California court’s deci­sion effec­tive­ly halt­ed the planned exe­cu­tion of Michael Angelo Morales, mark­ing the start of California’s 20-year mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tion sched­ul­ing and throw­ing into the spot­light the ten­sion between physi­cian par­tic­i­pa­tion in exe­cu­tions and their pledge to show​“the utmost respect for life.” > The events sur­round­ing Morales’s impend­ing fate brought to the sur­face the long-run­n­ing schism between law and medicine,…

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. Please vis­it DPI’s new­ly revamped Race land­ing page for a deep­er dive into the issue. Why it mat­ters: Black peo­ple in the cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem are dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly rep­re­sent­ed – cur­rent­ly com­pris­ing 40% of the death row population despite…

When Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry and Attorney General Liz Murrill took office in January 2024, they moved aggres­sive­ly to restart exe­cu­tions in the state. Gov. Landry signed bills that autho­rized nitro­gen suf­fo­ca­tion and elec­tro­cu­tion as exe­cu­tion meth­ods, increased his own pow­er over the state cap­i­tal defense sys­tem, and lim­it­ed post-con­vic­­tion appeals, while AG Murrill moved to take over cap­i­tal appeal chal­lenges from local dis­trict attor­neys. In March 2025,…

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: Although women rep­re­sent just 2% of death-sen­­tenced pris­on­ers, they have unique issues and have often faced gen­der bias­es at every stage of their pros­e­cu­tion. — Fewer than 50 women are sen­tenced to death in the United States (October 2025). — Women…

In an order dat­ed February 11, 2026, U.S. District Court Judge Timothy J. Kelly issued a pre­lim­i­nary injunc­tion tem­porar­i­ly block­ing the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment from trans­fer­ring many for­mer fed­er­al­ly death-sen­­tenced pris­on­ers to the noto­ri­ous Administrative Maximum Facility in Florence, Colorado, known as​“ADX.” Judge Kelly found it​“like­ly” that the gov­ern­ment vio­lat­ed the pris­on­ers’ Fifth Amendment due process rights when it deprived them of a​“mean­ing­ful…

On January 30, a fed­er­al judge ruled that Luigi Mangione can­not face the death penal­ty in his upcom­ing tri­al for the mur­der of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. She dis­missed two counts from his fed­er­al indict­ment, one of which car­ried the death penal­ty as a poten­tial sen­tence. Described by The New York Times as​“a sig­nif­i­cant blow to the Trump administration’s efforts to revive the use of the death penal­ty in fed­er­al cas­es,” this deci­sion invalidates a…

A bipar­ti­san group of 19 Republicans and 28 Democrats nar­row­ly defeat­ed a mea­sure to add the fir­ing squad as an exe­cu­tion method in an Indiana House floor vote on January 28, 2026. HB 1119 received 48 in favor and 47 against, falling three votes short of pas­sage, with two leg­is­la­tors not vot­ing and three absent. Although the mea­sure could have been brought for a sec­ond vote before February 2, it was not. A sim­i­lar Senate bill (SB 11) to add the fir­ing squad stalled in…