Publications & Testimony

An inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tion into Tennessee​’s exe­cu­tion prac­tices has found that the state repeat­ed­ly failed to fol­low its own pro­to­cols in per­form­ing sev­en exe­cu­tions and prepar­ing for an eighth between 2018 and 2022. Governor Bill Lee (pic­tured) com­mis­sioned the inves­ti­ga­tion in May 2022, short­ly after he called off the exe­cu­tion of Oscar Smith “[d]ue to an over­sight in prepa­ra­tion for lethal injec­tion.” The report, which was pub­licly released on December…

2022 — Proposed legislationStates with bills to abol­ish death penal­ty indi­cat­ed with *Session dates via StateScapeState names link to state legislative…

A Dallas County judge has rec­om­mend­ed that the con­vic­tion and death sen­tence of a Jewish death-row pris­on­er be over­turned because his tri­al was poi­soned by the vir­u­lent anti-Semitic big­otry of the Texas judge who presided over his…

Fulfilling a pledge made while cam­paign­ing for office, Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema on December 23, 2022 signed leg­is­la­tion abol­ish­ing the nation’s death penal­ty (pic­tured). Zambia’s repeal of its colo­nial-era cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment law made it the 25^th sub-Saharan nation in Africa to abol­ish the death penal­ty. The new law also removed the offense of crim­i­nal defama­tion of the President from Zambia’s penal…

On January 3, 2023, Missouri is set to exe­cute Amber McLaughlin (pic­tured), the first trans­gen­der per­son sched­uled to be put to death in the United…

A Nevada judge has blocked a request from out­go­ing Governor Steve Sisolak (pic­tured) that the Nevada Pardons Board con­sid­er com­mut­ing all death sen­tences to life with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole. Gov. Sisolak pro­posed on December 14, 2022 that the board dis­cuss the com­mu­ta­tion of the state’s 57 death sen­tences at its December 20 meet­ing. Just one day before that meet­ing was set to take place, Carson City District Court Judge James Wilson Jr. blocked the dis­cus­sion and ruled that the proposal…

With the sup­port of a record 125 nations, the United Nations General Assembly has over­whelm­ing­ly adopt­ed a res­o­lu­tion call­ing for a glob­al mora­to­ri­um on the use of the death penal­ty with a view towards its ulti­mate abo­li­tion. The United States vot­ed no, plac­ing it in the com­pa­ny of Iran, Iraq, Saudia Arabia, China, North Korea, and…

The three final exe­cu­tions sched­uled in 2022 high­light­ed broad­er trends in the year’s exe­cu­tions — the exe­cu­tion of vul­ner­a­ble defen­dants, unavail­abil­i­ty of lethal-injec­tion drugs, and the sched­ul­ing of exe­cu­tions with­out regard for the abil­i­ty to actu­al­ly car­ry them out. Mississippi exe­cut­ed Thomas ​“Eddie” Loden Jr. (pic­tured) on December 14, the 18^th exe­cu­tion of the year, while two exe­cu­tions set for December 15 — John Hanson​’s in…

The death penal­ty con­tin­ued its long-term decline in the U.S. in 2022, as Oregon com­mut­ed its death row and new death sen­tences and pub­lic sup­port for the death penal­ty remained near 50-year lows. But per­haps more dra­mat­i­cal­ly than any­thing else, the for­ti­eth anniver­sary of lethal injec­tion could be known as ​“the Year of the Botched Execution,” the Death Penalty Information Center said in its 2022 Year End…

As part of her response to a series of botched exe­cu­tions, Alabama Governor Kay Ivey has sent a let­ter to the Alabama Supreme Court ask­ing it to allow the Department of Corrections to extend the time with­in which exe­cu­tions can be car­ried out. Governor Ivey’s let­ter fol­lows her November announce­ment of a ​“top-to-bot­tom review” of the state’s exe­cu­tion pro­ce­dures. The let­ter offered no expla­na­tion of the exe­cu­tion teams’ length delays in plac­ing IV lines, nor…