Publications & Testimony

In this month’s episode of Discussions with DPIC, Executive Director Robin Maher speaks with Steve Vladeck, a Georgetown law pro­fes­sor and expert on the Supreme Court. Professor Vladeck is the author of The Shadow Docket: How the Supreme Court Uses Stealth Rulings to Amass Power and Undermine the Republic, released in 2023, as well as the week­ly newslet­ter One First, which breaks down the Court’s rul­ings and his­to­ry. Professor Vladeck explains why the Court’s treatment of…

On October 15, 2024, the Idaho Department of Corrections (IDOC) amend­ed its exe­cu­tion pro­to­col and facil­i­ties to enable staff to place a cen­tral intra­venous line, if nec­es­sary, to deliv­er lethal injec­tion drugs to a pris­on­er. IDOC now has a new exe­cu­tion prepa­ra­tion room in which venous access would be estab­lished pri­or to trans­fer­ring the pris­on­er to the exe­cu­tion cham­ber. This change, and accom­pa­ny­ing prison ren­o­va­tions this past sum­mer, came after the February 28, 2024 failed execution of…

Update: The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles denied clemen­cy for Robert Roberson on October 16,…

Joseph Giarratano (pic­tured, cen­ter) died on October 6, 2024. He had spent near­ly forty years in prison, many of them on death row, for a crime he main­tained he did not com­mit. During his time behind bars, he sought to improve prison con­di­tions and secure access to attor­neys. After being paroled in 2017, he worked at the University of Virginia’s Innocence Project, con­tin­u­ing his work to assist incarcerated…

On October 11, 2024 the Embassies of France and Germany host­ed a dis­cus­sion on the ques­tion of inno­cence and the death penal­ty at the res­i­dence of the French Ambassador in Washington, D.C. Panelists includ­ed Herman Lindsey, a death row exoneree and Executive Director of Witness to Innocence; Vanessa Potkin, Director of Special Litigation at the Innocence Project; and Emmjolee Mendoza Waters, Director of the Death Penalty Abolition Program at Catholic Mobilizing Network. The approximately 75…

In hon­or of Hispanic Heritage Month (Sept. 15-Oct. 15), DPI is post­ing a week­ly fea­ture on Hispanic or Latino/​a peo­ple who have had a sig­nif­i­cant impact on the death penal­ty in the U.S. The final entry in this series is U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia…

On Friday, October 4, the Supreme Court agreed to hear argu­ments in Gutierrez v. Saenz, a case regard­ing death-sen­tenced Texas pris­on­er Ruben Gutierrez’s abil­i­ty to sue the state for DNA test­ing in sup­port of his inno­cence claim. The Court had issued a stay to Mr. Gutierrez on July 16, just twen­ty min­utes before his sched­uled exe­cu­tion. Mr. Gutierrez was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in 1999 for the mur­der and rob­bery of an 85-year-old woman but has long main­tained his innocence.

On October 9, 2024, the United States Supreme Court will hear oral argu­ments in Glossip v. Oklahoma, when the Court will con­sid­er mul­ti­ple ques­tions relat­ed to Richard Glossip’s con­vic­tion and death sen­tence. This is Mr. Glossip’s sec­ond trip to the Supreme Court; the first occurred in 2015 in con­nec­tion with his method of exe­cu­tion chal­lenge. Mr. Glossip has always main­tained his inno­cence of the 1997 ​“mur­der for hire” crime that sent him to death row. In the inter­ven­ing years, he has…

On September 26, 2024, Governor John Carney (D) signed House Bill 70, which offi­cial­ly repeals the death penal­ty from the state’s law. Although Delaware’s Supreme Court found its death penal­ty statute to be uncon­sti­tu­tion­al in 2016, inval­i­dat­ing it for future use and effec­tive­ly abol­ish­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, the pas­sage of HB 70 amends Title 11 of the state’s code to remove the death penal­ty and replace it with life with­out parole as the most severe pun­ish­ment for first-degree murder for…

American pros­e­cu­tors have immense pow­er and rel­a­tive­ly unchecked dis­cre­tion in cap­i­tal cas­es. But in sev­er­al recent cas­es, death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers reached agree­ments with pros­e­cu­tors that would have saved them from exe­cu­tion, only to learn that anoth­er offi­cial had inter­fered to block the agree­ment. Critics have argued that these deci­sions sow pub­lic dis­trust in the legal process and raise con­cerns that gov­ern­ment offi­cials may be exploit­ing death penal­ty cas­es for political…