Publications & Testimony

Absent court action, Tony Carruthers is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed in Tennessee on May 21, 2026, despite untest­ed DNA evi­dence, an inno­cence claim, and seri­ous men­tal ill­ness con­cerns. On May 18, faith lead­ers, civ­il rights advo­cates and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers marched to the state capi­tol to urge Governor Bill Lee to grant Mr. Carruthers clemen­cy or stay his exe­cu­tion to allow addi­tion­al DNA test­ing, deliv­er­ing a peti­tion with over 130,000 sig­na­tures. Gov. Lee…

On May 13, 2026, the city of Austin, Texas agreed to pay $35 mil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion to four men — three sur­viv­ing and one deceased — who spent years under the shad­ow of wrong­ful con­vic­tions, accused of an infa­mous quadru­ple mur­der that DNA proved none of them com­mit­ted. The set­tle­ment, which must still be approved by the Austin City Council, came less than three months after a Travis County judge declared Robert Springsteen, Michael Scott, Forrest Welborn, and Maurice Pierce…

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) wants to fast-track death penal­ty appeals and has pro­posed a new set of reg­u­la­tions designed to facil­i­tate that process. If imple­ment­ed, the pro­posed rule would allow the Attorney General to​“cer­ti­fy” active death penal­ty states like Texas, Florida, and Alabama, result­ing in short­er fil­ing dead­lines and restrict­ed fed­er­al court review, among oth­er changes intend­ed to move appeals through the courts more quick­ly. The rule as…

On May 11, 2026, law­mak­ers in Israel passed leg­is­la­tion by a vote of 93 – 0 cre­at­ing a spe­cial tri­bunal with­in the mil­i­tary jus­tice sys­tem with the author­i­ty to impose the death penal­ty on Palestinians con­vict­ed of involve­ment in the October 7, 2023, attacks. The leg­is­la­tion pro­vides that pro­ceed­ings will be con­duct­ed in Jerusalem with a pub­licly avail­able livestream. The new tri­bunal will have the author­i­ty to charge approx­i­mate­ly 300 detained Palestinians…

DPI’s​“What to Know” series exam­ines cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment from mul­ti­ple angles, one top­ic at a time. Each install­ment pro­vides essen­tial facts and data on spe­cif­ic aspects of the death penal­ty. Please vis­it DPI’s Discrimination in Jury Selection page for a deep­er dive into the issue. Why it mat­ters: Nearly four decades after the U.S. Supreme Court barred race-based juror strikes in Batson v. Kentucky (1986), stud­ies have found that pros­e­cu­tors in North Carolina…

On May 14, 2026, Edward Busby became the 600^th per­son exe­cut­ed in Texas in the last 50 years. A three-judge pan­el of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit had tem­porar­i­ly stayed his exe­cu­tion, but the U.S. Supreme Court lift­ed the stay, allow­ing the exe­cu­tion to pro­ceed. Mr. Busby is a per­son whom all experts agree has intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty, and he should there­fore have been legal­ly inel­i­gi­ble for exe­cu­tion. Mr. Busby’s case is illustrative of…

On April 8, 2026, the Mississippi Legislature enact­ed Senate Bill 2821, cre­at­ing the new offense of​“cap­i­tal sex­u­al bat­tery” and autho­riz­ing the death penal­ty for the sex­u­al abuse, or attempt­ed sex­u­al abuse of a child under 12 years of age that results in​“injury to the child’s sex­u­al organs.” Mississippi Governor Tate Reaves approved the leg­is­la­tion, which will take effect July 1, 2026. With its pas­sage, Mississippi joins Florida (2023), Tennessee (2024), Idaho…

A South Carolina cir­cuit court judge has found that death-sen­­tenced pris­on­er John Wood can­not be exe­cut­ed because of his severe schiz­o­phre­nia. The con­sti­tu­tion­al thresh­olds estab­lished by the U.S. Supreme Court in Ford v. Wainwright (1986) and clar­i­fied in Panetti v. Quarterman (2007) and Madison v. Alabama (2018) deter­mine that a pris­on­er may not be exe­cut­ed if they are unable to ratio­nal­ly under­stand the rea­son they are being put to death. Judge Grace Knie…

On death row, pris­on­ers expe­ri­ence some of the harsh­est con­di­tions in the American prison sys­tem, which often take a severe psy­cho­log­i­cal and phys­i­cal toll. Despite these chal­lenges, many death-sen­­tenced pris­on­ers com­plete­ly trans­form in prison — they become remorse­ful, accept respon­si­bil­i­ty, and devote them­selves to edu­ca­tion, men­tor­ship, faith, and advo­ca­cy. Their sto­ries stand in stark con­trast to the com­mon nar­ra­tive that peo­ple sen­tenced to death…