Publications & Testimony

Attorneys for Christa Pike, the only woman on Tennessee’s death row, filed a motion on August 30 to re-open her appeals based on a recent decision from the Tennessee Supreme Court. In 2022, the Court ruled in State v. Booker that mandatory life sentences in homicide cases are unconstitutional when imposed on juveniles, drawing on U.S. Supreme Court precedent that held that juveniles are less mature, more vulnerable to peer pressure, and generally less culpable than adults. Ms. Pike’s attorneys…

In the August 2023 episode of Discussions with DPIC, Anne Holsinger, Managing Director of DPIC, speaks with Dr. Roya Boroumand (pictured), Executive Director of the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran. A specialist in Iran’s post-World War 2 history, Dr. Boroumand provides historical context for ongoing events and discusses the current increase in executions. “My understanding as someone who has documented executions since the early days of the revolution is that capital…

On August 30, 2023, the Tennessee Criminal Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court’s ruling that formerly death-sentenced prisoner Pervis Payne can serve his two life sentences concurrently, making him eligible to apply for parole in less than four years. Shelby County Criminal Court Judge Paula Skahan resentenced Mr. Payne in 2022 to two life sentences with the possibility of parole after prosecutors conceded that they could not disprove Mr. Payne’s claim that he is intellectually disabled and…

Former Denver Chief Deputy District Attorney Craig Silverman recently wrote about why he changed his mind about supporting the death penalty and expressed new fears regarding its future use. His op-ed was published on August 29, 2023 in the Colorado Sun. Mr. Silverman writes that capital punishment was a prominent issue in his campaign for Denver District Attorney, and he himself prosecuted death penalty cases and publicly supported its use. But he writes that he now has “newfound support for…

Larry Hudson has been added to DPIC’s Descriptions of Innocence page as a newly-discovered death row exoneration. Mr. Hudson was tried and sentenced to death for a robbery-homicide in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1967, when he was 19 years old. He was exonerated in 1993, when he was 46 years old. An eyewitness, Frank Wilson, testified at Mr. Hudson’s trial that he had picked Mr. Hudson out of a line-up prior to trial, but a police officer who had been present testified that Mr. Wilson had failed…

On August 25, 2023, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall asked the state Supreme Court to set a date for Kenneth Smith to be executed using nitrogen hypoxia, a method that has never been used in any state. The decision to use this method comes after Alabama botched several executions. Since 2018, when Alabama initially authorized the use of nitrogen hypoxia in capital punishment, the state has been working to establish a protocol for executions using this method. Alabama initially authorized…

In July 2023, legal scholars, a civil rights group, and various organizations which advocate for victims of domestic and gender-based violence filed amicus briefs in support of two death-sentenced female prisoners, Brenda Andrew and Brittany Holberg. Both amicus briefs allege that gender bias in their cases denied them fair trials. On July 10, 2023, the Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice, joined by three professors with expertise in the death penalty, criminal law, and women and…

A recent law review article criticizes the U.S. Supreme Court’s use of its ‘shadow docket’ in capital cases, particularly in recent years. The Capital Shadow Docket and the Death of Judicial Restraint, by Professor Jenny-Brooke Condon, explains that the Court “invokes judicial restraint to justify its refusal to second-guess the cruelty of challenged execution methods or when Justices cite federalism-based rationales for refusing to delay state enforcement of a death sentences … And yet on the…

At an August 15, 2023 rally organized by The Promise for Justice Initiative, a group opposed to the death penalty and which advocates for greater change in the criminal legal system, family members of victims and prisoners and death row exoneree Shareef Cousin called on the Board of Pardons and Committee on Parole to grant the 56 clemency applications that have been submitted by prisoners on death row. “Part of clemency is really about giving the opportunity to the survivors of these crimes to…

On August 18, 2023, a military judge in Guantanamo Bay overseeing the pretrial capital prosecution of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the Saudi national accused of organizing the October 2000 bombing of the U.S.S. Cole, excluded Mr. al-Nishiri’s confessions as the product of torture. “Exclusion of such evidence is not without societal costs,” said the judge, Col. Lanny J. Acosta Jr., in a 50-page decision. “However, permitting the admission of evidence obtained by or derived from torture by the same…