Publications & Testimony

In this month’s pod­cast episode of 12:01 The Death Penalty in Context, DPI’s Managing Director Anne Holsinger speaks with Sabrina Butler-Smith (pic­tured), who was wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death at age 17 for caus­ing the death of her nine-month-old son. After two years and nine months on death row, Ms. Butler-Smith’s con­vic­tion was over­turned. At a sec­ond tri­al, it was deter­mined that her son died from a seri­ous med­ical con­di­tion, poly­cys­tic kidney disease,…

After a series of last-minute legal chal­lenges, cul­mi­nat­ing with a denial of stay from the U.S. Supreme Court, Louisiana exe­cut­ed Jessie Hoffman on March 18, 2025. Mr. Hoffman’s exe­cu­tion marked both the state’s first exe­cu­tion in 15 years and the state’s first exe­cu­tion using nitro­gen gas — only the sec­ond state to use this new method. State offi­cials acknowl­edged that Mr. Hoffman exhib­it­ed​“con­vul­sive activ­i­ty” as he inhaled nitro­gen gas through a mask while…

On March 14, 2025, a group of nine death row pris­on­ers in Tennessee filed a law­suit chal­leng­ing the state’s sole use of pen­to­bar­bi­tal in its revised lethal injec­tion pro­to­col, argu­ing it cre­ates a​“high risk of a tor­tur­ous death.” In December 2024, the Tennessee Department of Correction (TDOC) com­plet­ed a mul­ti-year lethal injec­tion pro­to­col review and announced that instead of the pre­vi­ous three-drug pro­to­col, the state would shift to rely on just one drug:…

Twenty years ago this month, the Supreme Court in its land­mark deci­sion Roper v. Simmons found cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment for indi­vid­u­als under 18 years of age uncon­sti­tu­tion­al under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. In explain­ing their deci­sion, the Court drew in part on​“sci­en­tif­ic and soci­o­log­i­cal” stud­ies show­ing that a lack of matu­ri­ty in youth can lead to​“impetu­ous and ill-con­sid­ered actions and deci­sions,” which sup­port­ed the idea that this cohort were…

On March 11, in sep­a­rate deci­sions, a fed­er­al court in Louisiana and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) stayed the upcom­ing exe­cu­tions of David Wood (sched­uled for exe­cu­tion in Texas on March 13) and Jessie Hoffman (sched­uled for exe­cu­tion in Louisiana on March 18). In Mr. Wood’s case, the TCCA grant­ed a stay of exe­cu­tion to allow the state more time to address the eight claims Mr. Wood assert­ed in his state habeas claim. In Mr. Hoffman’s case, the U.S. District Court for the Middle…

On March 4, 2025, the Georgia House of Representatives, in a 172 – 0 vote, unan­i­mous­ly passed HB 123, which would pro­vide pre­tri­al hear­ings for cap­i­tal defen­dants to raise intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty claims and would low­er the stan­dard of proof for those claims from ​“beyond a rea­son­able doubt” to a ​“pre­pon­der­ance of evi­dence,” in line with oth­er the oth­er 26 states that still retain the death penal­ty. The bill was orig­i­nal­ly intro­duced by Republican Representative Bill Werkheiser dur­ing Georgia’s…