Publications & Testimony

Three and a half years after announc­ing its inves­ti­ga­tion into the fed­er­al death penal­ty pro­to­col, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced on January 15, 2025 that the Department of Justice (DOJ) is rescind­ing the fed­er­al government’s sin­­gle-drug pen­to­bar­bi­tal lethal injec­tion pro­to­col. The DOJ’s deci­sion was based on what AG Garland called​“sig­nif­i­cant uncer­tain­ty” about whether exe­cu­tions by pen­to­bar­bi­tal caused unnec­es­sary pain and suf­fer­ing. The…

A recent op-ed in the Idaho Statesman high­lights a num­ber of dif­fi­cul­ties that are a result of his­toric under­spend­ing on cap­i­tal defense as the state pre­pares for its first exe­cu­tion since 2012. Idaho’s pub­lic defense sys­tem is tran­si­tion­ing to statewide over­sight as part of an effort to address long­stand­ing inequities in coun­­ty-fund­ed legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion. With the con­sol­i­da­tion of the pub­lic defend­er sys­tem came pay increas­es for most of Idaho’s…

On January 10, 2025, three Connecticut law­mak­ers intro­duced a bill that would make it ille­gal to man­u­fac­ture and sell any drugs or med­ical devices in the state meant to car­ry out the death penal­ty. In 2024, Connecticut-based com­pa­ny Absolute Standards was iden­ti­fied as the source of lethal injec­tion drugs used in 13 fed­er­al exe­cu­tions in 2020 and 2021. In a let­ter to the bill’s spon­sors, John Criscio, President of Absolute Standards, said the com­pa­ny ceased production…

Progress towards glob­al abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty con­tin­ues with Zimbabwe’s end-2024 deci­sion to near­ly elim­i­nate the prac­tice, only pre­serv­ing the right to impose death when the coun­try is under a declared pub­lic emer­gency. Zimbabwe’s last execution…

On December 30, 2024, a mil­i­tary appeals court upheld a low­er court rul­ing reject­ing Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s attempt to throw out plea deals reached for three men charged in the September 11 ter­ror­ism attacks. The court affirmed Judge Colonel Matthew N. McCall’s rul­ing in November 2024 that the plea agree­ments reached in July 2024 are valid. Col. McCall stat­ed at the time that he would pro­ceed with the…

On December 27, 2024, the Tennessee Department of Correction (TDOC) com­plet­ed a mul­ti-year lethal injec­tion pro­to­col review and announced that instead of the pre­vi­ous three-drug cock­tail, lethal injec­tion exe­cu­tions will use a sin­­gle-drug bar­bi­t­u­ate, pen­to­bar­bi­tal. Ohio was the first state to use pen­to­bar­bi­tal, in the March 2011 exe­cu­tion of Johnnie Roy Baston. State offi­cials now use sin­gle drug pro­to­cols in 14 states, includ­ing Tennessee, as well as in…

Governor…

Robert Roberson with daugh­ter Nikki. Courtesy of the…