Publications & Testimony

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to review two cas­es con­cern­ing the scope of death-row pris­on­ers’ access to the fed­er­al courts in lit­i­gat­ing the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of their con­vic­tions and sen­tences or the method by which states seek to execute…

Two con­ser­v­a­tive Republican leg­is­la­tors, both for­mer sup­port­ers of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, have intro­duced leg­is­la­tion that would end death-penal­ty pros­e­cu­tions in…

Adam Luck (pic­tured), the Chairman of Oklahoma’s Board of Pardons and Parole, has resigned from the board under pres­sure from Governor Kevin Stitt because of Luck’s votes in favor of clemen­cy for death-row…

On Martin Luther King Day, DPIC looks at the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King’s views on capital…

The same brand of Southern pride that inspired lynch­ings after the U.S. Civil War fuels sup­port for the death penal­ty today, writes legal ana­lyst Joia Erin Thornton (pic­tured) in a com­men­tary on the web pub­li­ca­tion, Blavity. In The Dark Southern Pride Upholding The Barbaric Death Penalty, pub­lished December 23, 2021, Thornton argues that, just as Southern states in Reconstruction turned to extreme carcer­al pun­ish­ments to reim­pose vio­lent con­trol over Black…

Kentucky​’s death penal­ty is racial­ly dis­crim­i­na­to­ry, geo­graph­i­cal­ly arbi­trary, and rid­dled with sys­temic flaws, a new study of the commonwealth’s use of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment has…

In the January 2022 episode of Discussions with DPIC, Contra Costa County, California District Attorney Diana Becton (pic­tured), speaks with Death Penalty Information Center Executive Director Robert Dunham about the rise in reform pros­e­cu­tors across the coun­try, the inher­ent flaws in cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment that led her to work along­side oth­er reform pros­e­cu­tors to end the death penal­ty, and her efforts as dis­trict attor­ney to bring fair­ness and equi­ty to the criminal…

A coali­tion of dis­abil­i­ty rights groups, legal experts, and con­ser­v­a­tive advo­cates are urg­ing the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down the unique­ly harsh bur­den of proof Georgia has imposed upon defen­dants seek­ing to estab­lish their inel­i­gi­bil­i­ty for the death penal­ty because of intellectual…

An Alabama fed­er­al judge has issued an order halt­ing the sched­uled January 27, 2022 exe­cu­tion of Matthew Reeves…

As 2021 came to a close, edi­to­r­i­al writ­ers in four death penal­ty states called for leg­isla­tive and exec­u­tive action to end cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment or fur­ther lim­it its…