Publications & Testimony

*On Veterans Day, the Death Penalty Information Center will release a new report about vet­er­ans and the death penal­ty, explor­ing the last­ing effects of mil­i­tary ser­vice and explain­ing why mil­i­tary expe­ri­ences mat­ter when vet­er­ans inter­act with the legal sys­tem. This arti­cle tells the sto­ry of Navy vet­er­an David Hosier who was sen­tenced to death with­out a jury ever learn­ing about his men­tal health strug­gles, hon­or­able mil­i­tary ser­vice, and childhood…

A new report pub­lished on the 40^th anniver­sary of the United Nation’s cre­ation of the​‘abo­li­tion­ist de fac­to’ (ADF) cat­e­go­ry, Between Retention and Abolition: Making Sense of a Death Penalty Without Executions, exam­ines the legal, polit­i­cal, and sym­bol­ic role of the death penal­ty in coun­tries that retain the death penal­ty but have either not car­ried out an exe­cu­tion in 10 years or have estab­lished an offi­cial mora­to­ri­um. Authored by researchers at UK-based The…

Indiana’s seem­ing­ly para­dox­i­cal resump­tion of exe­cu­tions, with three over the last year, is draw­ing scruti­ny from many cor­ners of the state. Governor Mike Braun, leg­is­la­tors from both polit­i­cal par­ties, pub­lic defend­ers and even pros­e­cu­tors have raised ques­tions about the costs of pros­e­cut­ing cap­i­tal cas­es and obtain­ing drugs for exe­cu­tions; the fail­ure of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment to deter crime; and the increas­ing reluc­tance of Indiana juries to sentence…

On Veterans Day, the Death Penalty Information Center will release a new report about vet­er­ans and the death penal­ty, explor­ing the last­ing effects of mil­i­tary ser­vice and explain­ing why mil­i­tary expe­ri­ences mat­ter when vet­er­ans inter­act with the legal sys­tem. This arti­cle takes a moment to reflect on* Battle Scars *— DPI’s first path­break­ing report about vet­er­ans and the death penal­ty released a decade ago — and two of the pow­er­ful indi­vid­ual stories of…

On October 23, 2025, Alabama exe­cut­ed Anthony Boyd, despite his unwa­ver­ing claim of inno­cence and a fiery dis­sent authored by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, renew­ing the seri­ous con­cerns that have been con­sis­tent­ly raised about the state’s use of nitro­gen gas. Justice Sotomayor, joined by Justices Kagan and Jackson, dis­sent­ed from the Court’s October 23, 2025, denial of a stay of exe­cu­tion, writ­ing that Alabama’s use of nitro­gen gas​“vio­lates the Constitution…

Anthony Boyd is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed in Alabama on October 23, 2025, for his role in the 1993 kid­nap­ping and mur­der of Gregory​“New York” Huguley. Mr. Boyd was con­vict­ed based sole­ly on eye­wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny with no phys­i­cal evi­dence link­ing him to the crime, and he has main­tained his inno­cence. Alabama will exe­cute Mr. Boyd using nitro­gen gas, the sev­enth time state has used this con­tro­ver­sial method since January 2024, when the state exe­cut­ed Kenneth Smith in…

On October 13, 2025, Governor Gavin Newsom signed the lat­est set of amend­ments to California’s Racial Justice Act (CRJA) into law, strength­en­ing a ground­break­ing piece of leg­is­la­tion that pro­hibits crim­i­nal con­vic­tions and sen­tences based on race, eth­nic­i­ty, or nation­al ori­gin. Under this law, cap­i­tal­ly con­vict­ed pris­on­ers can pur­sue mean­ing­ful relief, beyond just the rever­sal of a death sen­tence, if the state is found to have violated these…

Update: Mr. Shockley was exe­cut­ed by lethal injec­tion on October 14. He was pro­nounced dead at 6:13 p.m. Yesterday, Missouri Governor Mike Kehoe denied clemen­cy to Lance Shockley, who is sched­uled for exe­cu­tion today at 6 p.m. However, a recent sur­vey found that Missouri vot­ers, by a bipar­ti­san two-thirds major­i­ty, would pre­fer to see Mr. Shockley’s death sen­tence com­mut­ed. Dr. Nicholas Scurich of the University of California, Irvine, found that 65% of the 440…