Publications & Testimony

This week marks the 15^th anniversary of the repeal of the death penalty in New Mexico. On March 18^th, 2009, Governor Bill Richardson signed the repeal act (HB2085), ending the death penalty in the state. The bill came into force on July 1^st, 2009. New Mexico followed New Jersey to become the second state in the 21^st Century to end capital punishment through legislative means. In honor of this anniversary and Women’s History Month, DPIC Data Fellow Łukasz Niparko interviewed two women who were…

On February 16, 2024, Utah Governor Spencer Cox signed Senate Bill 109, Corrections Modifications, into law, “amend[ing] provisions related to the [Utah] Department of Corrections.” S.B. 109, described as an “uncontroversial” legislative measure, was belatedly amended to include a provision preventing the public disclosure of “identifying information” about individuals involved in carrying out executions, the procurement of drugs and supplies needed for executions, and any identifying…

This month, DPIC celebrates Women’s History Month with weekly profiles of notable women whose work has been significant in the modern death penalty era. The second entry in this series is Sarah Belal, founder and executive director of Justice Project Pakistan (JPP), a nonprofit organization in Lahore, Pakistan. Now a prominent international lawyer and human rights advocate, Sarah Belal says she was “thoroughly uninspired” by law school. It was not until her first visit to a Pakistani prison…

On Friday, March 8, 2024 a Johnston County trial court concluded a historic hearing regarding the claims of Hasson Bacote, a death-sentenced prisoner in North Carolina, that racial discrimination in jury selection played a role in his 2009 capital sentencing. The case, which is being reviewed pursuant to North Carolina’s 2009 Racial Justice Act (RJA), could have implications for more than 100 other death row prisoners who have pending claims under the Act. The evidence presented by Mr.

Jessie Dotson, a man sentenced to death for killing six people in 2008 in the Binghampton neighborhood of Memphis, Tennessee, has filed a petition for a writ of a habeas corpus asking a judge to vacate his conviction and death sentence. His petition alleges that he is innocent, that police coerced him to falsely confess, and that a number of prosecutorial and defense errors occurred at trial. Mr. Dotson has been on death row since 2008, when he was sentenced to death for the murders of four…

As more states consider nitrogen hypoxia as an execution method, three of the largest manufacturers in the U.S. have barred their products intended for life-saving measures from use in executions. “Airgas has not, and will not, supply nitrogen or other inert gases to induce hypoxia for the purpose of human execution,” the company, which is owned by the French multinational Air Liquid, announced following Oklahoma’s addition of nitrogen hypoxia to their execution protocol in 2015. The European…

In May 1990, Jonathan Eig, then a reporter for The New Orleans Times-Picayune, witnessed the electric-chair-execution of Dalton Prejean at Angola State Penitentiary for the 1977 murder of a Louisiana state trooper. Mr. Eig watched Mr. Prejean’s execution through an observation window, and reported seeing “his chest heave, his fists clench and his right wrist twist outward. A spark and a puff of smoke shot from the electrode attached to his left leg.” In the years following the execution, Mr.

This month, DPIC celebrates Women’s History Month with weekly profiles of notable women whose work was significant in the modern death penalty era. The first entry in this series is U.S. District Court Judge Natasha Merle. Judge Natasha Merle was nominated to the bench by President Biden in 2021 and became his 100^th confirmed judicial appointment. She has served on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York since August 2023. Judge Merle graduated with a B.A. from…

The Georgia Attorney General has announced that Willie James Pye, who previously had his death sentence reversed due to his attorney’s failure to investigate his background, only to see the death sentence reinstated on appeal, is set to be executed on March 20. Mr. Pye’s court-appointed trial attorney, Johnny Mostiler, has been accused of ineffective representation or racial bias in at least four cases involving Black defendants and reportedly called one of his own clients a “little n****r.”

In the aftermath of Idaho’s failed execution of Thomas Creech and Texas’ execution of Ivan Cantu on February 28, the European Union released a statement expressing its regret and reiterating its unequivocal opposition to the death penalty.. “[The death penalty] is a violation of the right to life and fails to act as a deterrent to crime. It represents the ultimate punishment that makes miscarriages of justice irreversible,” said the statement. “[W]e are concerned by the fact that the number of…