Publications & Testimony

On January 23, 2025, the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals lifted an injunction enjoining the enforcement of an Arizona statute, Victim Contact Limits, which prohibits criminal defense teams from contacting crime victims and their family members directly. The restrictions are found in Arizona’s Victim Rights Implementation Act (Rev. Stat. Ann. § 13- 4433(B)) and also apply to death penalty cases. The decision means that prisoners and their lawyers may no longer engage directly with victims and their…

According to the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty’s annual Year in Review, Texas’ death row continued to shrink in 2024, reflecting prosecutors’ increasing reluctance to bring new capital cases and juries’ growing reluctance to sentence individuals to death. Texas juries imposed just six new death sentences in 2024, marking the tenth consecutive year of single-digit death sentences. Five of those six involved defendants of color, following another long-observed trend. In 1999…

According to investigative reporting from the AZ Mirror, the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation, & Reentry (ADCRR) is storing the state’s supply of pentobarbital salt, the active ingredient used in a compounded form in lethal injection executions, in eight unmarked glass containers in a prison refrigerator, raising doubts about the drugs’ authenticity and efficacy. ADCRR has refused to reveal how long it has been in possession of these…

At Brenda Andrew’s 2004 trial in Oklahoma for the murder of her husband, the prosecutor called witnesses to testify about her “provocative” clothing and her previous sexual relationships, and questioned “whether a good mother would dress or behave” the way she had. Jurors heard Ms. Andrew called a “hoochie” and a “slut puppy.” In his closing argument, the prosecutor opened a suitcase and showed the jury Ms. Andrew’s underwear, asking, “The grieving widow packs this in her appropriate act of…

On January 20, 2025, President Donald Trump signed more than two dozen Executive Orders, including a call to “restore” the federal death penalty. The Order, while lacking many important details, instructs the Department of Justice’s Attorney General to “pursue the death penalty for all crimes of a severity demanding its use,” including the killing of a law enforcement officer or “a capital crime committed by an illegal alien present in this country” and to encourage state attorneys general to…

On January 9, 2025, the U.S. Department of Justice released its Review and Evaluation of the Tulsa Race Massacre of May 31-June 1, 1921. The department characterized the report as “the federal government’s first thorough reckoning” designed to acknowledge, illuminate, and preserve for history the “horrible ordeals of the massacre’s victims” even if they found no legal avenue for prosecution of the crimes committed over a century ago. The report confirms that no federal charges were filed at…

Three and a half years after announcing its investigation into the federal death penalty protocol, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced on January 15, 2025 that the Department of Justice (DOJ) is rescinding the federal government’s single-drug pentobarbital lethal injection protocol. The DOJ’s decision was based on what AG Garland called “significant uncertainty” about whether executions by pentobarbital caused unnecessary pain and suffering. The DOJ’s statement expressed a desire to “err…

A recent op-ed in the Idaho Statesman highlights a number of difficulties that are a result of historic underspending on capital defense as the state prepares for its first execution since 2012. Idaho’s public defense system is transitioning to statewide oversight as part of an effort to address longstanding inequities in county-funded legal representation. With the consolidation of the public defender system came pay increases for most of Idaho’s public defenders, but many of the highest-paid…

When Marion Bowman was arrested at age 20 for the murder of Kandee Martin, society did not consider him mature enough to drink alcohol, rent a car, or enter a casino. Yet he was deemed old enough to be sentenced to death. Now 44, he has spent over half his life on South Carolina’s death row and is scheduled for execution on January 31. “Retribution is not proportional if the law’s most severe penalty is imposed on one whose culpability or blameworthiness is diminished, to a substantial degree…

On January 10, 2025, three Connecticut lawmakers introduced a bill that would make it illegal to manufacture and sell any drugs or medical devices in the state meant to carry out the death penalty. In 2024, Connecticut-based company Absolute Standards was identified as the source of lethal injection drugs used in 13 federal executions in 2020 and 2021. In a letter to the bill’s sponsors, John Criscio, President of Absolute Standards, said the company ceased production of pentobarbital in…