Publications & Testimony

On March 24, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed low­er court orders that had denied a Texas death-row prisoner’s request for his pas­tor to touch him and audi­bly pray dur­ing his exe­cu­tion. In rul­ing for John Henry Ramirez (pic­tured), the Court empha­sized Texas’ abil­i­ty to pre­vent any delay of his exe­cu­tion by sim­ply cre­at­ing rea­son­able pro­ce­dures to allow Ramirez the accom­mo­da­tions he seeks. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the opin­ion of the…

An Ohio appeals court has ordered that death-row pris­on­er Tyrone Noling (pic­tured) be grant­ed access to pros­e­cu­tors’ and law enforce­ment files that may con­tain excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence that has been hid­den for decades from the…

Fewer coun­tries are using the death penal­ty for drug offens­es, but accord­ing to a new glob­al report, exe­cu­tions increased in those that did and took place in pro­ceed­ings char­ac­ter­ized by author­i­tar­i­an­ism and…

March 25, 2022 will mark the end of the only death penal­ty case in Wyoming — or at least the fam­i­ly of Lisa Marie Kimmell hopes it…

South Carolina has com­plet­ed prepa­ra­tions to exe­cute the state’s death-row pris­on­ers by firing…

Military pros­e­cu­tors and defense attor­neys are report­ed­ly dis­cussing plea deals that could take the death penal­ty off the table in the Guantánamo mil­i­tary com­mis­sion cas­es of five men accused of involve­ment in the September 11, 2001 ter­ror­ist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The nego­ti­a­tions, first report­ed by the New York Times on March 15, 2022 and sub­se­quent­ly con­firmed by defense coun­sel, would require alleged 9/​11 plan­ner Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and…

A Pennsylvania tri­al court has grant­ed a new tri­al to death-row pris­on­er Kevin Dowling (pic­tured), find­ing that pros­e­cu­tors with­held evi­dence that would have shown he was 40 miles away when their sole eye­wit­ness claimed to have seen him near the murder…

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia exe­cut­ed 81 peo­ple on March 12, 2022, the largest mass exe­cu­tion in the mod­ern his­to­ry of the coun­try, elic­it­ing out­rage from United Nations and non-gov­ern­men­tal human rights…

Davidson County District Attorney Glenn Funk is ask­ing a Tennessee tri­al court to vacate the death sen­tence imposed on Byron Black (pic­tured), agree­ing that the Nashville man, who is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed in August 2022, is intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled and there­fore inel­i­gi­ble to be…

The num­ber of peo­ple sen­tenced to death or fac­ing con­tin­u­ing jeop­ardy of exe­cu­tion in pend­ing cap­i­tal retri­al or resen­tenc­ing pro­ceed­ings in U.S. states has dropped below 2,400 for the first time since 1990, a Death Penalty Information Center analy­sis of NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF) data has…