Publications & Testimony

Clarence Brandley (pic­tured) was wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in 1981 in Texas for the rape and mur­der of a 16-year-old white girl. From the out­set, he was tar­get­ed based on his race. On the day of the mur­der, a police offi­cer said to the two jan­i­tors at the school who had found the deceased, ​“One of you two is going to hang for this.” Then, turn­ing to Brandley, said, ​“Since you’re the n****r, you’re…

Dr. Joseph Thornton, a psy­chi­a­trist who for­mer­ly treat­ed death row pris­on­ers as the med­ical direc­tor of a Florida max­i­mum secu­ri­ty prison, called for an end to the death penal­ty for those with severe men­tal ill­ness: ​“We should not be exe­cut­ing any­one, let alone the sick and the bro­ken,” he said. ​“As some­one with over 40 years’ expe­ri­ence see­ing patients with seri­ous men­tal ill­ness who are stig­ma­tized, ostra­cized and blamed for their symp­toms, I believe that recov­ery care, not ostracization,…

Prominent death penal­ty attor­ney, founder and Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative, Bryan Stevenson (pic­tured with President Joe Biden), was award­ed the National Humanities Medal on March 21, 2023 at the White House. The pres­i­dent com­mend­ed Stevenson for his long-term efforts to rep­re­sent the impov­er­ished and exon­er­ate the wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed, in addi­tion to found­ing the Legacy Museum and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, both locat­ed in Montgomery,…

In a forth­com­ing update to their ground­break­ing 2018 research on the impor­tance of mit­i­ga­tion in death penal­ty cas­es, researchers Russell Stetler, Maria McLaughlin, and Dana Cook (pic­tured) have great­ly expand­ed the num­ber of cap­i­tal cas­es reviewed and drawn the con­clu­sion that ​“the effec­tive inves­ti­ga­tion and pre­sen­ta­tion of mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence can fore­stall a death sen­tence no mat­ter how death-wor­thy the crime facts may appear at first glance.” Their study — titled ​“Mitigation Works” — focused…

After years of silence regard­ing his views on the death penal­ty, Governor John Bel Edwards of Louisiana expressed his oppo­si­tion to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in a sem­i­nar at Loyola University in New Orleans. On March 22, 2023, Edwards said, ​“The death penal­ty is so final. When you make a mis­take, you can’t get it back. And we know that mis­takes have been made in sen­tenc­ing people to…

Idaho will become the fifth state to autho­rize the fir­ing squad as a method of exe­cu­tion and may become the first state to manda­to­ri­ly impose it on a death row pris­on­er since 1976. Idaho’s Governor Brad Little signed HB 186 into law on March 24, 2023, and it goes into effect on July 1. The law gives the direc­tor of the Idaho Department of Correction up to five days after a death war­rant is issued to deter­mine if lethal injec­tion is avail­able. If it is declared unavail­able, the execution will…

According to the Louisiana Public Defender’s Office, the state spent $7.7 mil­lion on the legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion of defen­dants in death penal­ty cas­es just in 2022. That total does not include the costs of pros­e­cu­tors, judges, and oth­er crim­i­nal jus­tice per­son­nel. The state has not car­ried out an exe­cu­tion in 13 years and has had only one exe­cu­tion in the past 21 years. State offi­cials have attrib­uted the most recent exe­cu­tion delays to dif­fi­cul­ties obtain­ing the drugs need­ed for lethal injection…

An in-depth piece in the Huffington Post exam­ines Harris County’s (Texas) sys­tem for pro­vid­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tion to those fac­ing the death penal­ty who can­not afford their own attor­ney. The process is explored through the sto­ry of Obel Cruz-Garcia, a pris­on­er on Texas’ death…

In the lat­est episode of ​“Discussions with DPIC,” Robert Dunham, for­mer Executive Director of DPIC, inter­views Karen Steele (pic­tured), a researcher and defense attor­ney in Oregon, regard­ing the spe­cial char­ac­ter­is­tics of late ado­les­cent defen­dants fac­ing the death penal­ty. Research by Steele and oth­ers points to the incom­plete brain devel­op­ment in those aged 18 – 21 and how that can be exac­er­bat­ed in those suf­fer­ing from fetal alco­hol spec­trum dis­or­der. The research has also found that…

On March 14, 2023, at the direc­tion of Attorney General Merrick Garland (pic­tured), the U.S. Attorney for the District of North Dakota with­drew the notice of intent to seek a death sen­tence for Alfonso Rodriguez, Jr., who had been con­vict­ed in 2006 of the 2003 kid­nap­ping and killing of col­lege stu­dent Dru Sjodin. Rodriguez had orig­i­nal­ly been sen­tenced to death in 2007, but U.S. District Court Judge Ralph Erickson reversed the death sen­tence because of mis­lead­ing tes­ti­mo­ny pre­sent­ed at trial…