Publications & Testimony

Items: 31 — 40


Aug 20, 2024

New Analysis from The Appeal Finds Anti-LGBTQ+ Bias Affects the Fate of Defendants in Death Penalty Cases

An analy­sis from The Appeal of more than two dozen cas­es in which LGBTQ+ defen­dants faced the death penal­ty found evi­dence that anti-LGBTQ+ bias affect­ed case out­comes. After an exam­i­na­tion of media reports, aca­d­e­m­ic jour­nals, and legal doc­u­ments, The Appeal deter­mined that these cas­es are like­ly a sig­nif­i­cant under­count of the num­ber of LGBTQ+ peo­ple sen­tenced to death. These cap­i­tal cas­es illus­trate the ingrained anti-LGBTQ+ bias endem­ic to the U.S. legal sys­tem — from sodomy…

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Aug 19, 2024

Kansas City Star Op-Ed Describes the Death Penalty as the Ultimate Failed Big-Government Program” and Calls for Abolition

In an August 14, 2024 op-ed in The Kansas City Star, Carolyn McGinn, a Kansas State Senate Republican rep­re­sent­ing District 31, and Kelson Bohnet, a cap­i­tal pub­lic defend­er and board mem­ber for the Kansas Coalition Against the Death Penalty, argue that the state’s cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem has failed, empha­siz­ing its cost­li­ness, lack of deter­rent effect, and inher­ent risk of irrepara­ble harm,” and call for abo­li­tion dur­ing the next legislative…

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Aug 16, 2024

Articles of Interest: U.S. Senator, Former U.S. Solicitor General and Victim’s Family Member Express Support for 9/​11 Plea Deals

Theodore B. Olson, for­mer U.S. Solicitor General from 2001 to 2004, who lost his wife in the September 11th ter­ror attacks, says he felt relief upon hear­ing the announce­ment that three of the defen­dants entered into an agree­ment to plead guilty in exchange for removal of the death penal­ty as a sen­tenc­ing option. However, Mr. Olson writes that his relief was short-lived when with­in 48 hours of the announce­ment Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin revoked the plea agree­ment. Mr. Olson believes this…

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Aug 15, 2024

Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board Recommends Clemency for Prisoner Scheduled for September Execution

On August 7, 2024, Oklahoma’s Pardon and Parole Board vot­ed 3 – 2 to rec­om­mend clemen­cy for 52-year-old Emmanuel Littlejohn, who is cur­rent­ly sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed on September 26. The final deci­sion to grant clemen­cy, reduc­ing Mr. Littlejohn’s death sen­tence to life with­out parole, rests with Governor Kevin Stitt, who has only grant­ed clemen­cy once dur­ing his…

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Aug 14, 2024

Florida’s Governor DeSantis Schedules First Execution of 2024 for Dozier Reform School Survivor After 10-Month Execution Hiatus

On July 29, 2024, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed the state’s first exe­cu­tion war­rant of 2024, sched­ul­ing an exe­cu­tion date for Loran Cole (pic­tured) in just thir­ty days, on August 29, 2024. Mr. Cole’s exe­cu­tion war­rant comes near­ly ten months after Florida’s last exe­cu­tion, which was the last of the state’s six exe­cu­tions car­ried out in 2023. Mr. Cole was sen­tenced to death in 1995 for the mur­der of a Florida State University stu­dent in Marion County, Florida. Following the issuance of…

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Aug 13, 2024

New Analysis: Innocent Death-Sentenced Prisoners Wait Longer than Ever for Exoneration

On July 1, after wait­ing 41 years for his name to be cleared, Larry Roberts became the 200th per­son exon­er­at­ed from death row. A new Death Penalty Information Center analy­sis finds that Mr. Roberts’ expe­ri­ence illus­trates a trou­bling trend: for inno­cent death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers, the length of time between wrong­ful con­vic­tion and exon­er­a­tion is increas­ing. In the past twen­ty years, the aver­age length of time before exon­er­a­tion has rough­ly tripled, and 2024 has the high­est-ever aver­age wait…

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Aug 12, 2024

New York Times Video Op-eds Highlight Systemic Flaws in the Capital Punishment System, Including Mistakes from Junk Science and Lack of Closure for Victims’ Families

In the sec­ond and third videos of The New York Times’ three-part series, The Fallibility of Justice,” Brett Malone, whose mother’s killer remains on Louisiana death row, and Texas death-sen­tenced pris­on­er Charles Don Flores pro­vide their per­spec­tives on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. The New York Times has con­sis­tent­ly called for abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty, describ­ing it as full of bias and error, moral­ly abhor­rent, [and] futile in deter­ring crime.”…

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Aug 08, 2024

Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush Expresses Regrets Regarding His Experience with Capital Punishment: I Was Very Uncomfortable With It”

In a July pod­cast episode from Deeper Dive with Dara Kam, for­mer Florida Governor Jeb Bush (pic­tured) spoke about his beliefs on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment and his regrets about not hav­ing enough time to reform Florida’s death penal­ty process. Gov. Bush, who over­saw 21 exe­cu­tions dur­ing his eight years in office, said that it’s one of those things that would prob­a­bly be unpop­u­lar to do, but fig­ur­ing out a way to reform the sys­tem giv­en the exist­ing laws that we have now, I think would be…

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Aug 07, 2024

Worldwide Wednesday International Roundup: Belarus, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Singapore

30-year-old German nation­al Rico Krieger, who was sen­tenced to death on six charges relat­ed to ter­ror­ism, espi­onage, and mer­ce­nary activ­i­ty, was par­doned by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on July 30, 2024, there­by con­vert­ing his death sen­tence to a life prison term. On August 1, Mr. Krieger was sub­se­quent­ly released dur­ing the largest pris­on­er exchange since the Cold War, accord­ing to The Guardian. Eight Russian pris­on­ers were released from Western nations, including…

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Aug 06, 2024

Discussions with DPIC Podcast: Legal Fellow Leah Roemer on the Politicization of the Death Penalty

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…

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