Publications & Testimony

A new report from the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), Unreliable Verdicts: Racial Bias and Wrongful Convictions, explores the history of racial bias in jury selection in the United States, including the last 40 years of racially-discriminatory preemptory jury strikes, and highlights the growing body of research showing that jury bias is reduced and the deliberative process enhanced when juries are more diverse. Looking at the pool of documented death penalty…

On February 11, 2025, the Alabama House of Representatives voted 86 – 5, with nine abstentions, in favor of a bill that would expand the use of the death penalty to those convicted of the rape or sodomy of a child under the age of 12. This bill will be headed to the state Senate. If passed, the law would directly violate United States Supreme Court precedent established in Kennedy V. Louisiana (2008), which found the death penalty an unconstitutional form of punishment for the rape of a child…

On February 10, 2025, Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry announced his decision to end a 15-year pause on executions, saying the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections is ready to carry out executions under a new nitrogen gas execution protocol. In a press release following his announcement, Gov. Landry said, “For too long, Louisiana has failed to uphold the promises made to victims of our State’s most violent crimes; but that failure of leadership by previous administrations is…

On January 30, 2025, the Montana House of Representatives rejected by a vote of 51 – 49 House Bill 205 (HB 205), which would have modified the state’s lethal injection protocol. The bill sought to remove language in the Montana lethal injection protocol that requires the use of an “ultra-fast acting” drug in combination with a “chemical paralytic agent” and replace it with broader terminology that would allow for the use of any “substance or substances in a lethal quantity sufficient to cause…

For the third consecutive session, the Georgia House of Representatives is reviewing a bill seeking to provide better protections to capital defendants with intellectual disabilities. Currently, the state requires a defendant to prove “beyond a reasonable doubt” that they have an intellectual disability – the only death penalty state to have this unusually high standard. Introduced by a bipartisan group of legislators on January 27, 2025, HB 123 would lower the standard of proof required to a…

When California Governor Gavin Newsom announced a moratorium on executions in 2019, he said that the state’s “death penalty system has been, by all measures, a failure.” He explained that the death penalty “has discriminated against defendants who are mentally ill, Black and brown, or can’t afford expensive legal representation…[while providing] no public safety benefit or value as a deterrent.” In 2024, California courts agreed that execution was not the appropriate punishment for at least 45…

Henderson Hill has dedicated his career to placing race and the death penalty on trial. This month, the Death Penalty Information Center celebrates Black History Month by recognizing Mr. Hill’s ongoing contributions to the modern death penalty landscape. Mr. Hill’s extensive career in the death penalty movement brought him to various organizations, including several that he founded, such as the 8^th Amendment Project, the Center for Death Penalty Litigation in Raleigh, North Carolina, Charlotte…

On February 7, 2025, Johnston County Superior Court Judge Wayland Sermons ruled “[r]ace was a significant factor” in both jury selection and the decision to impose death in the case of Hasson Bacote and granted relief for Mr. Bacote from his death sentence under the provisions of North Carolina’s Racial Justice Act (RJA). Judge Sermons also found racial discrimination tainted all death sentences in Johnston County and neighboring Harnett and Lee Counties, potentially affecting the outcomes of…

On January 16, 2025, Taiwan carried out its first execution since April 2020. Huang Linkai, who was sentenced to death in 2017 for the 2013 murders of his ex-girlfriend and her mother, was executed at the Taipei Detention Center. Although Mr. Huang’s attorney filed a last-minute appeal, the execution proceeded. There are questions whether Mr. Huang’s execution was in accord with the September 20, 2024 ruling by Taiwan’s Constitutional Court, which mandated that the government amend certain…