Publications & Testimony

Robert Badinter, a fierce defend­er of human rights, defense lawyer, and for­mer French jus­tice min­is­ter who led the effort to abol­ish the death penal­ty in his coun­try, died on February 9, 2024. Mr. Badinter influ­enced many legal changes, includ­ing laws that decrim­i­nal­ized homo­sex­u­al­i­ty, improved prison con­di­tions, and advo­cat­ed for his own par­tic­u­lar con­cept of jus­tice. As a defense lawyer, Mr. Badinter wit­nessed the exe­cu­tion of one of his clients, and vivid­ly recalled the hor­rors involved with the use of the guil­lo­tine. In 1981, one of his first offi­cial actions as…

This month, DPIC cel­e­brates Black History Month with week­ly pro­files of notable Black Americans whose work affect­ed the mod­ern death penal­ty era. The first in the series is retired Nebraska state sen­a­tor Ernie Chambers. 

Today, February 8, marks the 100-year anniver­sary of the first lethal gas exe­cu­tion in the United States, exact­ly two weeks after Alabama car­ried out the first exe­cu­tion using nitro­gen gas. 

The January 25, 2024 exe­cu­tion of Kenneth Smith in the state of Alabama with nitro­gen gas received wide­spread inter­na­tion­al con­dem­na­tion. The European Union reit­er­at­ed its com­mit­ment to abol­ish­ing the death penal­ty and called the exe­cu­tion method a ​“par­tic­u­lar­ly cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment.” The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, stat­ed: ​“I deeply regret the exe­cu­tion of Kenneth Eugene Smith in Alabama despite seri­ous con­cerns that this nov­el and untest­ed method of suf­fo­ca­tion may amount to tor­ture, cru­el, inhu­man or degrad­ing treat­ment.” A January 30 state­ment by four United…

On February 6, 2024, the South Carolina Supreme Court heard oral argu­ments in Owens v. Stirling, a case in which death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers chal­lenged the state’s elec­tro­cu­tion and fir­ing squad exe­cu­tion meth­ods as uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. A South Carolina tri­al court had pre­vi­ous­ly held an exten­sive evi­den­tiary hear­ing and issued an injunc­tion against use of those meth­ods based on the state’s con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­hi­bi­tion against ​“cru­el,” ​“unusu­al,” or ​“cor­po­ral” pun­ish­ments. For almost 90 min­utes the par­ties dis­cussed the expert tes­ti­mo­ny and evi­dence con­sid­ered by the dis­trict court, while also spend­ing sub­stan­tial time debat­ing the…

Two of the 196 peo­ple who have been exon­er­at­ed from death row in the U.S. died in a two-week span in January 2024. Their cas­es high­light the human costs of wrong­ful con­vic­tions and the chal­lenges faced by exonerees. Clifford Williams, Jr. (pic­tured, left), who was wrong­ful­ly incar­cer­at­ed for 42 years in Florida, died January 11, less than five years after he was freed. Michael Graham, Jr. (pic­tured, below), who spent 14 years on death row in Louisiana before being exon­er­at­ed in 2000, died January 24.

On Tuesday, January 30, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost announced new leg­is­la­tion to autho­rize the use of nitro­gen gas in exe­cu­tions in the state. Joined by sev­er­al Republican state rep­re­sen­ta­tives and Louis Tobin of the Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association, AG Yost said that he is seek­ing to ​“kick­start” Ohio’s death penal­ty after a six-year pause in exe­cu­tions due to dif­fi­cul­ties obtain­ing lethal injec­tion drugs. ​“The sta­tus quo is unac­cept­able,” he said. According to the text of the pro­posed bill, H.B. 392, a pris­on­er could elect lethal injec­tion or nitro­gen hypoxia…

On January 26, 2024, St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell filed a motion in the St. Louis County Circuit Court, ask­ing the Court to vacate Marcellus Williams’ death sentence. 

In a new arti­cle from Bolts, jour­nal­ist Daniel Nichanian writes about the dearth of can­di­dates in Ohio’s coun­ty pros­e­cu­tor elec­tions. ​“Of the 27 coun­ties with more than 100,000 res­i­dents in Ohio, 70 per­cent drew just one can­di­date” to run for elec­tion or reelec­tion as coun­ty pros­e­cu­tor. Only 15 of Ohio’s 88 pros­e­cu­tor elec­tions this year drew mul­ti­ple can­di­dates by the December dead­line, accord­ing to Bolts’ research: ​“This means that the vast major­i­ty of the state’s pros­e­cut­ing attor­neys are run­ning unop­posed this year; Bolts has con­firmed that no more than one can­di­date has…

On January 26, 2024, the Louisiana Supreme Court grant­ed a new tri­al to death-sen­tenced pris­on­er Darrell Robinson based on egre­gious pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct. The Court held that Mr. Robinson ​“did not receive a fair tri­al, or a ver­dict wor­thy of con­fi­dence.” Mr. Robinson’s quest to prove his inno­cence advances at the same time that Governor Jeff Landry seeks to expand the state’s meth­ods of exe­cu­tion and restart exe­cu­tions. During a tumul­tuous 2023 in which out­go­ing Governor John Bel Edwards sup­port­ed clemen­cy review for Louisiana’s entire death row, only to be blocked…