Publications & Testimony

Reverend Melissa Potts-Bowers, the spiritual advisor to Michael Tisius, recently described her experience ministering to him during his execution as “quite horrifying — as it’s intended to be.” Mr. Tisius was executed by the state of Missouri on June 6, 2023. Rev. Potts-Bowers’ relationship with Mr. Tisius began when she was his minister and pen pal and continued after she became a hospice chaplain. At the time of his execution, she had been his spiritual advisor for more than twenty years. In…

In a July 31 Letter to the Editor, Demetrius Minor, the National Manager of Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty criticizes the Louisiana Pardon Board decision to decline review of clemency petitions filed by nearly every death-sentenced prisoner in Louisiana. The clemency applications were filed after Governor Edwards publicly announced that he opposed the death penalty. The petitions raise claims of intellectual disability, severe mental illness, racial injustice, and…

On August 1, 2023, death-qualified federal jurors unanimously recommended a sentence of death for Robert Bowers, who they had earlier convicted of killing 11 Jewish worshippers at a Pittsburgh synagogue in October 2018. The jury agreed with all five aggravating factors alleged by the prosecution during the penalty phase but rejected defense counsel’s argument that Mr. Bowers’ schizophrenia and delusions meant he should not be sentenced to death. He will be formally sentenced by the court on…

On July 25, 2023, Ghana’s parliament voted to abolish the death penalty. Although the death penalty would remain in the constitution for acts of treason, the new law would remove the death penalty as possible punishment for murder, genocide, piracy, and smuggling. The current 176 death row prisoners, including six women, would have their sentences commuted to life in prison. Last year seven people were sentenced to death despite Ghana not having carried out an execution since 1993. The…

On July 29, 2023, the 8^th Circuit Court of Appeals lifted a temporary stay of execution that had been issued for Johnny Johnson, a death-sentenced prisoner in Missouri. Mr. Johnson’s attorneys allege that he is insane and therefore ineligible for execution. Barring a last-minute stay from the U.S. Supreme Court, Mr. Johnson will be executed by lethal injection on August 1, 2023, for the 2002 killing of 6‑year-old Casey Williamson. Attorneys for Mr. Johnson assert that his longstanding, severe…

The Death Penalty Information Center has created a webpage dedicated to restorative justice, a sentencing alternative in criminal cases, including limited use in death penalty cases. This resource highlights the foundations of restorative justice, common approaches, recent studies related to the practice, and examples of its use. As discussions surrounding the death penalty have shifted away from moral arguments, the comparison of capital punishment to its viable alternatives has conversely…

On July 24, 2023, the Louisiana Board of Pardons and Parole set aside all 56 clemency applications filed by nearly every death-sentenced prisoner in Louisiana last month without reviewing the merits of a single one of them. The prisoners asked for their sentences to be commuted to life without parole, but the Board made its decision to return the applications based on an advisory, nonbinding opinion from the Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry. Attorneys for death row prisoners have…

On July 21, 2023, Alabama death row prisoner James Barber was executed two hours after the U.S. Supreme Court denied his motion for a stay in a 6 – 3 decision. This marks the state’s first execution since a series of three botched executions in 2022 and an internal investigation into the Alabama Department of Corrections’ (ADOC) execution protocol. Mr. Barber’s lawyers initially requested discovery into ADOC’s internal review but were denied. They subsequently filed a motion to stay the…

The American Bar Association’s Criminal Justice Section has announced its forthcoming annual report, The State of Criminal Justice 2023, examining the state of the American criminal legal system. The annual publication includes a chapter devoted to significant developments in capital punishment, authored by Ronald J. Tabak, co-chair of the Death Penalty Committee of the ABA’s Section of Civil Rights and Social Justice and a longtime member of the Steering Committee of the ABA’s Death Penalty…

In the July 2023 episode of Discussions with DPIC, Anne Holsinger, Managing Director of DPIC, speaks with Kirk Bloodsworth (pictured), the first person exonerated from death row by DNA evidence. Mr. Bloodsworth reflects on the thirty years since his exoneration and discusses the experience of being wrongfully convicted. He also describes the work he and other exonerees have done, and how the issue of innocence has affected legislation on the death penalty. Though DNA testing has become more…