Publications & Testimony

Timothy Foster, whose con­vic­tion and death sen­tence were over­turned by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2016 because Georgia pros­e­cu­tors dis­crim­i­na­to­ri­ly struck Black jurors from serv­ing in his case, has been resen­tenced to life in prison with­out the possibility of…

The U.S. Supreme Court has over­turned a fed­er­al appeals court deci­sion that had reversed the death sen­tences imposed on Dzhokhar Tsarnaev for his role in the 2013 Boston Marathon bomb­ings that killed three peo­ple and injured more than 250…

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has stayed the March 8, 2022 exe­cu­tion of death-row pris­on­er Michael Gonzales (pic­tured, sec­ond from left, with his legal team) based on evi­dence that he may be inel­i­gi­ble for the death penal­ty because of intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty and that pros­e­cu­tors with­held favor­able evi­dence from the defense at the time of…

The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has affirmed a Nevada dis­trict court’s grant of a new tri­al to death-row pris­on­er Mark Rogers, blast­ing the state for pro­vid­ing him with inex­pe­ri­enced coun­sel who lacked the knowl­edge and resources to com­pe­tent­ly defend a cap­i­tal tri­al. In a 2 – 1 deci­sion issued on February 14, 2022, the appeals pan­el upheld a September 23, 2019 rul­ing by District Court Judge Gloria M. Navarro hold­ing that the public…

Lawyers for Texas death-row pris­on­er Melissa Lucio (pic­tured) have moved to vacate her April 27, 2022 exe­cu­tion date and remove the judge and dis­trict attor­ney in her case because of con­flicts of inter­est stem­ming from their employ­ment of key mem­bers of Lucio’s original defense…

A new nation­al poll has found that bipar­ti­san majori­ties of Americans oppose seek­ing the death penal­ty against vul­ner­a­ble groups of defen­dants who his­tor­i­cal­ly have been dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly sub­ject­ed to its…

President Joe Biden has nom­i­nat­ed fed­er­al appeals court judge Ketanji Brown Jackson (pic­tured) to serve as a U.S. Supreme Court jus­tice, ful­fill­ing his cam­paign pledge to select an African American woman for the Court. If con­firmed, Jackson would be the first Black woman to serve on the nation’s highest…

In the February 2022 episode of Discussions with DPIC, fed­er­al pub­lic defend­er, Amanda Bass (pic­tured, right), and Justice for Julius advo­cate Cece Jones-Davis (pic­tured, left) speak with Death Penalty Information Center Managing Director Anne Holsinger about the ques­tion­able con­vic­tion and near exe­cu­tion of for­mer Oklahoma death-row pris­on­er, Julius Jones. They dis­cuss how incom­pe­tent representation and…

Despite the absence of evi­dence that the death penal­ty pro­tects police or pro­motes pub­lic safe­ty, law­mak­ers in sev­er­al states that have abol­ished cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment have intro­duced bills to rein­state cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment for the mur­ders of police…

Bills that would exempt indi­vid­u­als with severe men­tal ill­ness from the death penal­ty have tak­en major steps for­ward in the Kentucky and South Dakota leg­is­la­tures. The Kentucky House of Representatives vot­ed over­whelm­ing­ly (76 – 19) on February 9, 2022, to advance its severe men­tal ill­ness exemp­tion, HB 269, to the state sen­ate. The South Dakota Senate fol­lowed on February 22, vot­ing 21 – 14 to pass SB 159. Both bills have Republican spon­sors and received…