Publications & Testimony

Attorneys for South Carolina death row prisoner Richard Moore (pictured) filed a clemency petition with Governor Henry McMaster, asking him to commute his sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Mr. Moore has garnered support from a wide range of individuals, including the former director of South Carolina Department of Corrections Jon Ozmint. In a letter to Gov. McMaster, Mr. Ozmint writes about how Mr. Moore’s “story of redemption” and good behavior will allow him to…

On October 24, 2024, the Kentucky Supreme Court denied a request by the Attorney General and the Kentucky Department of Corrections (KDOC) to remove an injunction currently prohibiting executions in Kentucky. In 2010, a Franklin County Circuit judge ordered a temporary injunction of all executions due to concerns regarding numerous aspects of Kentucky’s execution protocol, including concerns about the mental status and intellectual disability status of death row prisoners and the state’s lethal…

The Death Penalty Information Center is pleased to share a powerful new resource illustrating the dire consequences of inadequate legal representation in capital cases: a database of cases that were dismissed because they were not filed by the statutory deadline. The list of cases, developed by Professor Eric M. Freedman (pictured) and law student Paul Sessa of Hofstra University School of Law, will be updated by DPI going forward. Mr. Sessa and Professor Freedman found that from 1996 to 2024…

On October 28, 2024, hearings began in Kansas’ Wyandotte County District Court regarding the constitutionality of the state’s death penalty and its capital jury selection process. A coalition of the ACLU Capital Punishment Project, the ACLU of Kansas, the Kansas Death Penalty Unit, and the law firms Hogan Lovells and Ali & Lockwood brought the challenge. The team argues that the death penalty, which is rarely used in Kansas, is “arbitrary, racially discriminatory, unreliable, and unnecessary”…

On October 23, 2024, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton released a press statement, the original autopsy report, and other case records in an effort to “set the record straight” and “correct falsehoods” that he accused state lawmakers of making about Robert Roberson (pictured). In this unprecedented attack, AG Paxton also characterized the defense efforts as “eleventh-hour, one-sided, extrajudicial stunts that attempt to obscure facts and rewrite his past.” Texas Governor Greg Abbott has also…

Derrick Dearman first told his mother that he wanted to die when he was four years old. On October 17, he was executed by the state of Alabama, becoming the 20^th person executed in the United States this year and the 165^th in the modern era to “volunteer” for death. A new analysis by the Death Penalty Information Center shows that despite falling rates of death sentences, executions, and public support for the death penalty, the number of death-sentenced prisoners waiving their appeals and…

Death-sentenced prisoners with credible evidence of innocence have gained significant attention this month with the execution of Marcellus Williams in Missouri, the near-execution of Robert Roberson in Texas, and the U.S. Supreme Court arguments in Glossip v. Oklahoma. There is a common misconception that DNA evidence is widely available in all cases and central to exonerations, but the reality is that DNA exonerations in death penalty cases are relatively rare. DPI has identified 34 cases…

On October 21, 2024, U.S. District Court Judge Mary Geiger Lewis ruled that South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster has the sole power to grant clemency to Richard Moore. In response to allegations of bias presented by Mr. Moore’s counsel, Judge Lewis said that “[t]he Court is confident… Governor McMaster will give full, thoughtful, and careful consideration to any clemency petition filed by Moore, giving both comprehensive and individualized attention to the unique circumstances of his case.”

The Texas House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence heard testimony on Monday October 21, 2024 from novelist John Grisham, talk show host “Dr. Phil” McGraw, but not its expected star witness, Robert Roberson, whose subpoenaed testimony resulted in a dramatic last-minute stay of execution on October 17^th from the Texas Supreme Court. Legislators said they could not reach an agreement with the Office of the Texas Attorney General to facilitate Mr. Roberson’s in-person testimony, and Committee…

In this month’s episode of Discussions with DPIC, Executive Director Robin Maher speaks with Steve Vladeck, a Georgetown law professor and expert on the Supreme Court. Professor Vladeck is the author of The Shadow Docket: How the Supreme Court Uses Stealth Rulings to Amass Power and Undermine the Republic, released in 2023, as well as the weekly newsletter One First, which breaks down the Court’s rulings and history. Professor Vladeck explains why the Court’s treatment of death penalty cases…