Publications & Testimony

Missouri has car­ried out exe­cu­tions at one of the high­est rates of any state since the U.S. Supreme Court allowed cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment to resume 50 years ago, accord­ing to a new analy­sis of death sen­tences issued between 1972 and 2025. The Marshall Project, draw­ing on data com­piled by University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Professor Frank Baumgartner and the Death Penalty Information Center, found that Missouri has exe­cut­ed more than half of the peo­ple it has sentenced…

#### 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: State laws per­mit­ting judges to over­ride jury deci­sions and the impo­si­tion of death sen­tences based on non-unan­i­­mous jury ver­dicts have con­tributed to Alabama and Florida’s high death sen­tenc­ing rates — with near­ly 20% of Alabama’s death-sentenced population…

In a July 17, 2026, op-ed, for­mer Barack Obama advi­sor Van Jones and for­mer George W. Bush appointee David Safavian joint­ly argue that courts con­tin­ue to accept dis­cred­it­ed foren­sic tech­niques as reli­able evi­dence, con­tribut­ing to wrong­ful con­vic­tions across the coun­try. The authors con­trast the con­fi­dent foren­sic experts seen on tele­vi­sion crime dra­mas with real-world court­rooms where they say,​“pho­ny foren­sics” meth­ods — micro­scop­ic hair com­par­i­son, bite…

On July 20, 2026, attor­neys for death-sen­­tenced pris­on­er Darrell Hines, in a new fil­ing, asked the Tennessee Supreme Court to con­di­tion­al­ly stay Mr. Hines’ August 13 exe­cu­tion date because the Tennessee Department of Corrections (TDOC) has refused to iden­ti­fy whether it will use the same physi­cian involved in the state’s failed exe­cu­tion attempt of Tony Carruthers. Pointing to an extreme risk of pain and suf­fer­ing, as evi­denced by Mr. Carruthers’ botched execution,…

In March, the Idaho leg­is­la­ture passed a law exempt­ing exe­cu­tion pro­ce­dures from admin­is­tra­tive over­sight require­ments — seem­ing­ly designed to under­mine a pend­ing law­suit filed by death-sen­­tenced pris­on­er Gerald Pizzuto. After the fir­ing squad took effect as Idaho’s pri­ma­ry exe­cu­tion method on July 1, Mr. Pizzuto, along­side fel­low pris­on­er Thomas Creech, again sued the state on July 6 for alleged admin­is­tra­tive vio­la­tions. Mr. Pizzuto ini­tial­ly sued the state in…

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: More than 600 cap­i­tal con­vic­tions or death sen­tences have been over­turned or led to exon­er­a­tions because of pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct, and researchers say the true scope of the prob­lem is like­ly far greater. — DPI has iden­ti­fied more than 600…

On July 14, 2026, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced the resched­ul­ing of James Duckett’s exe­cu­tion for July 28 — the same day the state is set to car­ry out the exe­cu­tion of Dominick Occhicone. If both exe­cu­tions go for­ward, it would be the first time in the mod­ern era of the death penal­ty that Florida has car­ried out two exe­cu­tions in one day, and make Mr. Occhicone the old­est per­son exe­cut­ed in Florida’s mod­ern his­to­ry, break­ing the record set by Dennis Sochor’s…

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 death penal­ty is an irre­versible pun­ish­ment, and the United States has con­vict­ed, con­demned, and in some cas­es exe­cut­ed peo­ple despite cred­i­ble evi­dence of their inno­cence. — 202 peo­ple have been exon­er­at­ed from death row since 1973, across 30…

In a July 8, 2026 op-ed pub­lished in the Kansas Reflector, Celeste Dixon, a retired U.S. Navy reservist and National Park Service employ­ee who lives in Pawnee County, Kansas, calls on Governor Laura Kelly to com­mute the sen­tences of the nine men on Kansas’ death row to life with­out parole. Writing from per­son­al expe­ri­ence, Ms. Dixon notes that near­ly 40 years ago, her moth­er, Marguerite, was mur­dered in Texas; almost 19 years ago, the indi­vid­ual who killed her mother was…