Publications & Testimony

On April 21, 2025, the Vatican announced that Pope Francis, 88, died following a series of health failures. Pope Francis, the first Roman Catholic pontiff from Latin America, was an outspoken advocate for abolition of the death penalty. In August 2018, the Vatican announced that Pope Francis formally changed the official Catholic Church teaching on the death penalty, calling the practice “an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person,” adding that it is “inadmissible” in all cases.

On April 11, 2025, Judge Colonel Matthew McCall ruled that confessions elicited from Ammar al-Baluchi, accused of conspiring in the September 11^th terrorism attacks, were the result of torture carried out by the CIA and as a result cannot be used against Mr. al-Baluchi in any legal proceeding. According to Col. McCall, Mr. al-Baluchi involuntarily incriminated himself in 2007 after extensive “psychological conditioning” through torture and abuse during his detention at the CIA’s overseas…

On April 10, 2025, attorneys for Tennessee death row prisoners Oscar Smith and Byron Black called on Governor Bill Lee to issue a temporary reprieve in their cases. In their letter, the attorneys ask Gov. Lee “to pause all executions in Tennessee until March 1, 2026,” to permit a pending case challenging the constitutionality of the state’s new pentobarbital lethal injection procedure to be decided. In late December 2024, the Tennessee Department of Corrections (TDOC) completed a multi-year…

On March 31, the Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal of Lance Shockley of Missouri, the 36^th death-sentenced person to be denied certiorari by the Court this year. At trial, Mr. Shockley’s jury foreman was removed before the sentencing phase based on evidence of serious bias — but Mr. Shockley’s attorney declined the opportunity to question the foreman or other jurors about the misconduct, and his conviction, which the foreman participated in, was allowed to stand. Mr. Shockley’s claim on…

According to Amnesty International’s Annual Death Penalty Report, 15 countries carried out 1,518 known executions in 2024, constituting the lowest number of executing countries for the second consecutive year and the highest recorded execution figure since 2015, driven by increases in Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq. 46 countries imposed 2,087 new death sentences in 2024, a 14% decrease from the prior year; however, changes in the accessibility of information across countries make year-to-year…

To commemorate the 20^th anniversary of the United States Supreme Court decision that ended the juvenile death penalty, DPI will release a report examining the legacy of this decision and its implications for emerging adults. This article examines one area of focus in the report: recent state courts decisions that have extended legal protections to emerging adults ages 18 to 20. In 2012, in Miller v. Alabama, the U.S. Supreme Court emphasized that “youth matters” in determining the…

According to public records released to the Indiana Capital Chronicle, the Indiana Department of Corrections (IDOC) spent $900,000 on the drugs needed to carry out the lethal injection execution of Joseph Corcoran in December 2024. The newly released record is so highly redacted that just one line of text appears: “IDOC shall pay the Contractor the sum of nine hundred thousand dollars ($900,000).” The document does not show how much pentobarbital was purchased, when it was purchased, or from…

On April 1, 2025, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced she has directed acting U.S. Attorney for Manhattan, Matthew Podolsky, to seek the death penalty against Luigi Mangione for the 2024 killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. This is the first time AG Bondi has directed prosecutors to seek the death penalty since President Donald Trump assumed office in January 2025, when he issued an executive order including a call to “restore” the federal death penalty. In a statement…