Publications & Testimony

In a year that fea­tured mas­sive cam­paign adver­tis­ing attempt­ing to por­tray legal reform­ers as respon­si­ble for increas­es in vio­lent crime, can­di­dates com­mit­ted to crim­i­nal legal reform or who promised to con­tin­ue statewide mora­to­ria on exe­cu­tions post­ed key elec­tion wins in the 2022 midterm elec­tions. Defying a pre-elec­tion nar­ra­tive fore­cast­ing a back­lash against pro­gres­sive pros­e­cu­tors and con­ven­tion­al wis­dom that fear of crime dri­ves polit­i­cal out­comes, reform pros­e­cu­tors were re-elected to…

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and a coali­tion of more than 30 non-gov­ern­men­tal orga­ni­za­tions have con­demned the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for a series of exe­cu­tions for drug crimes car­ried out in vio­la­tion of inter­na­tion­al law. Human rights orga­ni­za­tions report­ed that Saudi author­i­ties exe­cut­ed 20 men in November for drug offens­es — 12 of them for­eign nation­als — after sud­den­ly lift­ing a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions for defen­dants convicted of…

Idaho has called off the sched­uled December 15, 2022 exe­cu­tion of ter­mi­nal­ly death-row pris­on­er Gerald Pizzuto, Jr. (pic­tured), say­ing it has not been able to obtain the drugs it needs to put him to death. Instead, pros­e­cu­tors said, the state would allow the death warrant to…

A Utah judge has grant­ed a new tri­al to death-row pris­on­er Douglas Carter, find­ing that pros­e­cu­tors know­ing­ly with­held from the defense evi­dence that police coerced false tes­ti­mo­ny from two key wit­ness­es, coached them to lie, pro­vid­ed them ​“thou­sands of dol­lars in finan­cial ben­e­fits” to impli­cate Carter, and threat­ened them with depor­ta­tion and loss of their son if they did not…

Alabama offi­cials have agreed not to make a sec­ond attempt to exe­cute Alan Miller by lethal injec­tion after the state had to call off his September 22, 2022 exe­cu­tion because of the fail­ure to estab­lish an IV line. If the state seeks to exe­cute Miller in the future, it will use nitro­gen hypox­ia, a method that has nev­er been used for an exe­cu­tion. In the months since Miller’s exe­cu­tion attempt, Alabama also attempt­ed and failed to exe­cute Kenneth Smith. In…

Texas is plan­ning to exe­cute a seri­ous­ly men­tal­ly ill pris­on­er who has gouged out both of his eyes because of his para­noid schiz­o­phre­nia. On November 7, 2022, the District Court of Grayson County, Texas set an April 5, 2023 exe­cu­tion date for Andre Thomas (pic­tured, left when arrest­ed; cen­ter, after goug­ing out his right eye pri­or to tri­al; right, after goug­ing out and eat­ing his left eye while on death row). Thomas has been described by his attor­neys as ​“one of the most…

Despite a court-appoint­ed spe­cial prosecutor’s request to vacate his death sen­tence, Missouri exe­cut­ed death-row pris­on­er Kevin Johnson (pic­tured, with daugh­ter Khorry Ramey, left, and new­born grand­son) on November 29, 2022. The exe­cu­tion moved for­ward after the Missouri Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court denied stays of exe­cu­tion fol­low­ing oral argu­ment in the Missouri high court less than 36 hours before the sched­uled exe­cu­tion. Missouri Governor Mike…

Alabama Governor Kay Ivey (pic­tured) has halt­ed exe­cu­tions and ordered a ​“top-to-bot­tom review” of the state’s exe­cu­tion pro­ce­dures, five days after fail­ures by cor­rec­tions per­son­nel to estab­lish an intra­venous exe­cu­tion line caused Alabama to call off the November 17, 2022 exe­cu­tion of Kenneth…

Corrections per­son­nel who par­tic­i­pate in exe­cut­ing pris­on­ers expe­ri­ence emo­tion­al trau­ma so pro­found that it changes their views about cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, a National Public Radio (NPR) investigation has…