Publications & Testimony

In this month’s episode of Discussions with DPIC, Managing Director Anne Holsinger speaks with Leah Roemer, DPIC’s Legal Fellow and a primary author of our recent report, Lethal Election: How the U.S. Electoral Process Increases the Arbitrariness of the Death Penalty. Leah graduated from Berkeley Law in 2023, where she participated in the Death Penalty Clinic and earned a certificate in Public Interest and Social Justice. Leah discusses how some judges, prosecutors, and politicians alter their…

A July 2024 report from the Texas Defender Service (TDS), An Unfulfilled Promise: Assessing the Efficacy of 11.073, the first-ever comprehensive review of Texas’ junk science writ, revealed that the “law systematically fails to provide relief to innocent people convicted based on false forensic evidence.” In 2013, the Texas Legislature passed a first-of-its-kind law, Texas Code of Criminal Procedure Article 11.073, creating a procedural pathway for convicted individuals to seek new trials if…

In honor of Disability Pride Month (July), the Death Penalty Information Center posted a weekly feature highlighting issues related to the death penalty and disability and profiles of individuals who have played key roles in changing the laws to protect prisoners with disabilities. This final post focuses on the role of mitigation specialists. Capital mitigation specialists assist defense attorneys when preparing for capital trials and post-conviction appeals by conducting a thorough…

UPDATE: On August 2^nd, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin revoked the July 31, 2024 plea agreement reached between military commissions prosecutors and defense counsel for three of the 9/11 defendants being held at Guantanamo. In a two-paragraph memo, Secretary Austin revoked the authority of Susan Escallier, the head of the Military Commissions Convening Authority, to enter into the plea agreements and reserved that authority for himself. This unexpected development negates at least two years…

On July 26, 2024, the Missouri Supreme Court denied Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s request to block an evidentiary hearing scheduled for August 21^st, 2024, where the St. Louis County Circuit Court is set to hear evidence of Marcellus Williams’ (pictured) innocence. The circuit court set the August 21^st hearing in response to a motion to vacate Mr. Williams’ conviction and death sentence filed by Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell in January 2024. In his motion, DA Bell wrote that the…

Brian Wharton, who was the lead detective in Palestine, Texas at the time of Robert Roberson’s conviction for the death of his two-year-old daughter Nikki, now believes Mr. Roberson is innocent and supports abolition of the death penalty. Mr. Wharton said in a video for The New York Times that there is “unassailable doubt” that Mr. Roberson is guilty. In the video, Mr. Wharton recounts his role in the investigation of Nikki’s death, describing how he believed he was doing the right thing, but…

With Utah preparing for its first execution in 14 years, one of the state’s leading newspapers has issued a call not only to spare Taberon Honie, the prisoner set for execution on August 8, 2024, but to end the practice of capital punishment altogether. In a July 25 editorial, the Salt Lake Tribune highlights Mr. Honie’s abusive upbringing and his sincere remorse for the crime, saying his case for clemency “is strong.” The day after the editorial was published, the Utah Board of Pardons and…

In a new analysis, the Death Penalty Information Center has found that executive officials most often cite disproportionate sentencing, possible innocence, and mitigation factors such as intellectual disability or mental illness as reasons to grant clemency in capital cases. Ineffective defense lawyering and official misconduct are also common factors in clemency grants. While present in fewer cases, support for clemency from the victim’s family or a decisionmaker in the original trial, such as…

As Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price seeks to remedy her office’s history of discriminatory jury selection, an study published in the 2024 Journal of Empirical Legal Studies by Catherine M. Grosso, Jeffrey Fagan, and Michael Laurence finds empirical evidence that the race of the defendant and the race of the victim affect the likelihood of a death sentence being imposed in California. “The Influence of the race of defendant and the race of victim on capital charging and sentencing…

This July, in honor of Disability Pride Month, the Death Penalty Information Center is posting a weekly feature highlighting issues related to the death penalty and disability and profiles of individuals who have played key roles in changing the laws to protect prisoners with disabilities. Daryl Atkins (pictured) became a pivotal figure in the American legal landscape in 2002 due to his role as the named prisoner in a landmark Supreme Court case concerning whether those who have intellectual…