Publications & Testimony

On May 9, 2023, the Ohio Senate Judiciary Committee held its first hear­ing on Senate Bill 101 that would abol­ish the state’s death penal­ty. The co-spon­­sors of the bill, Senate Democratic Leader Nickie Antonio (D‑Lakewood) and Senator Stephen Huffman (R‑Tipp City), argued in favor of the bill’s pas­sage and not­ed that more than one-third of Ohio’s sen­a­tors have signed…

Photo by Susan Q Yin on…

In an arti­cle for the University of Oxford Death Penalty Research Unit, Professor John Bessler dis­cuss­es whether the use of the death penal­ty should be clas­si­fied as tor­ture under the norms of inter­na­tion­al law. Bessler argues that since psy­cho­log­i­cal tor­ture is pro­hib­it­ed under the most fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ples of inter­na­tion­al law (jus cogens norms) and since death threats are a form of psy­cho­log­i­cal tor­ture, then gov­ern­men­tal death threats as part…

On May 3, 2023, the fam­i­ly of Joe Nathan James (pic­tured) sued the state of Alabama for the pain and suf­fer­ing it caused dur­ing his three-hour-long lethal injec­tion in 2022. It is believed to be the longest known exe­cu­tion in U.S. his­to­ry. The suit asserts that​“the exe­cu­tion team failed to exe­cute Mr. James in a man­ner that com­ports with the U.S. Constitution, the Alabama Constitution, and…

On May 1, 2023, the state of Florida adopt­ed leg­is­la­tion allow­ing the death penal­ty for sex­u­al abuse of a child where no death occurred. This statute is uncon­sti­tu­tion­al under the U.S. Supreme Court’s rul­ing in Kennedy v. Louisiana (2008). Excerpts from that opin­ion and from an ami­cus brief cited by…

A recent arti­cle in the The Guardian described the reac­tions of some of the California pris­on­ers who have been moved from San Quentin’s death row and trans­ferred to oth­er facil­i­ties around the state. The pris­on­ers are still under a sen­tence of death, but in 2019 Governor Gavin Newsom declared a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions and has dis­man­tled the execution…

In a detailed five-part series titled​“Poorly exe­cut­ed: How Arizona has failed at car­ry­ing out the death penal­ty,” the Arizona Mirror explores the last 16 years of Arizona’s use of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. The series focus­es on con­tro­ver­sies sur­round­ing the exe­cu­tions them­selves, includ­ing changes to the drug pro­to­col, the use of inex­pe­ri­enced or unqual­i­fied per­son­nel, and the state secre­cy sur­round­ing the process. It also looks into oth­er major issues in…

Bills to alter the state’s method of exe­cu­tion and to make the exe­cu­tion process more trans­par­ent failed in Tennessee’s leg­is­la­ture this year as its ses­sion con­clud­ed. In an effort to facil­i­tate exe­cu­tions bogged down by the state’s prob­lems with lethal injec­tion, a bill was pro­posed to give pris­on­ers the option of the fir­ing squad for their exe­cu­tion. Following an inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tion into Tennessee’s lethal injec­tion pro­to­cols, Governor Bill Lee (R) had…

The accom­pa­ny­ing graph (click to view sep­a­rate­ly) dis­plays the time in years since the last exe­cu­tion by each state as of May…

Bills to hide the iden­ti­ties of lethal-injec­­tion drug sup­pli­ers and exe­cu­tion team mem­bers from the pub­lic have passed both cham­bers of the South Carolina leg­is­la­ture. The bills face a rec­on­cil­i­a­tion process before one can move to the governor’s desk for sig­na­ture. Proponents of the law say it is nec­es­sary because reveal­ing such infor­ma­tion might make exe­cu­tions dif­fi­cult or impos­si­ble. South Carolina has not car­ried out an exe­cu­tion in 12 years. Opponents…