Publications & Testimony

On November 4, 2024, the United States Supreme Courts released its order in the case of Hamm v. Smith, 604 U.S. _​_​_​(2024). The peti­tion for cer­tio­rari, filed by the State of Alabama last year, involved a pris­on­er named Joseph Clifton Smith whose death sen­tence was vacat­ed in 2021 after a United States dis­trict court found he had intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty. Mr. Smith had tak­en five IQ tests, four of which placed his IQ in the low- to mid-70s, the range gen­er­al­ly accept­ed by experts to be…

Attorneys for South Carolina death row pris­on­er Richard Moore (pic­tured) filed a clemen­cy peti­tion with Governor Henry McMaster, ask­ing him to com­mute his sen­tence to life in prison with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole. Mr. Moore has gar­nered sup­port from a wide range of indi­vid­u­als, includ­ing the for­mer direc­tor of South Carolina Department of Corrections Jon Ozmint. In a let­ter to Gov. McMaster, Mr. Ozmint writes about how Mr. Moore’s ​“sto­ry of redemp­tion” and good behav­ior will allow him to…

On October 24, 2024, the Kentucky Supreme Court denied a request by the Attorney General and the Kentucky Department of Corrections (KDOC) to remove an injunc­tion cur­rent­ly pro­hibit­ing exe­cu­tions in Kentucky. In 2010, a Franklin County Circuit judge ordered a tem­po­rary injunc­tion of all exe­cu­tions due to con­cerns regard­ing numer­ous aspects of Kentucky’s exe­cu­tion pro­to­col, includ­ing con­cerns about the men­tal sta­tus and intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty sta­tus of death row pris­on­ers and the state’s…

The Death Penalty Information Center is pleased to share a pow­er­ful new resource illus­trat­ing the dire con­se­quences of inad­e­quate legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion in cap­i­tal cas­es: a data­base of cas­es that were dis­missed because they were not filed by the statu­to­ry dead­line. The list of cas­es, devel­oped by Professor Eric M. Freedman (pic­tured) and law stu­dent Paul Sessa of Hofstra University School of Law, will be updat­ed by DPI going for­ward. Mr. Sessa and Professor Freedman found that from 1996 to…

On October 28, 2024, hear­ings began in Kansas’ Wyandotte County District Court regard­ing the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the state’s death penal­ty and its cap­i­tal jury selec­tion process. A coali­tion of the ACLU Capital Punishment Project, the ACLU of Kansas, the Kansas Death Penalty Unit, and the law firms Hogan Lovells and Ali & Lockwood brought the chal­lenge. The team argues that the death penal­ty, which is rarely used in Kansas, is ​“arbi­trary, racial­ly dis­crim­i­na­to­ry, unre­li­able, and…

On October 23, 2024, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton released a press state­ment, the orig­i­nal autop­sy report, and oth­er case records in an effort to ​“set the record straight” and ​“cor­rect false­hoods” that he accused state law­mak­ers of mak­ing about Robert Roberson (pic­tured). In this unprece­dent­ed attack, AG Paxton also char­ac­ter­ized the defense efforts as ​“eleventh-hour, one-sided, extra­ju­di­cial stunts that attempt to obscure facts and rewrite his past.” Texas Governor Greg Abbott has also…

Derrick Dearman first told his moth­er that he want­ed to die when he was four years old. On October 17, he was exe­cut­ed by the state of Alabama, becom­ing the 20^th per­son exe­cut­ed in the United States this year and the 165^th in the mod­ern era to​“vol­un­teer” for death. A new analy­sis by the Death Penalty Information Center shows that despite falling rates of death sen­tences, exe­cu­tions, and pub­lic sup­port for the death penal­ty, the num­ber of death-sentenced prisoners…

Death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers with cred­i­ble evi­dence of inno­cence have gained sig­nif­i­cant atten­tion this month with the exe­cu­tion of Marcellus Williams in Missouri, the near-exe­cu­tion of Robert Roberson in Texas, and the U.S. Supreme Court argu­ments in Glossip v. Oklahoma. There is a com­mon mis­con­cep­tion that DNA evi­dence is wide­ly avail­able in all cas­es and cen­tral to exon­er­a­tions, but the real­i­ty is that DNA exon­er­a­tions in death penal­ty cas­es are rel­a­tive­ly rare. DPI has identified 34…

On October 21, 2024, U.S. District Court Judge Mary Geiger Lewis ruled that South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster has the sole pow­er to grant clemen­cy to Richard Moore. In response to alle­ga­tions of bias pre­sent­ed by Mr. Moore’s coun­sel, Judge Lewis said that “[t]he Court is con­fi­dent… Governor McMaster will give full, thought­ful, and care­ful con­sid­er­a­tion to any clemen­cy peti­tion filed by Moore, giv­ing both com­pre­hen­sive and indi­vid­u­al­ized atten­tion to the unique cir­cum­stances of his…

The Texas House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence heard tes­ti­mo­ny on Monday October 21, 2024 from nov­el­ist John Grisham, talk show host ​“Dr. Phil” McGraw, but not its expect­ed star wit­ness, Robert Roberson, whose sub­poe­naed tes­ti­mo­ny result­ed in a dra­mat­ic last-minute stay of exe­cu­tion on October 17^th from the Texas Supreme Court. Legislators said they could not reach an agree­ment with the Office of the Texas Attorney General to facil­i­tate Mr. Roberson’s in-per­son tes­ti­mo­ny, and Committee…