Publications & Testimony

The Committee on Revision of the Penal Code, cre­at­ed by the California state leg­is­la­ture to review the state’s crim­i­nal laws, has issued a report unan­i­mous­ly rec­om­mend­ing that the state repeal its death penal­ty. The six-mem­ber committee’s 39-page Death Penalty Report, released November 17, 2021, also offers inter­me­di­ate rec­om­men­da­tions for reduc­ing the size of California’s near­ly 700-per­son death row — the largest of any state in the…

After years of seek­ing to exe­cute Tennessee death-row pris­on­er Pervis Payne (pic­tured) for a dou­ble-mur­der he has long insist­ed he did not com­mit, the Shelby County District Attorney​’s office has con­ced­ed that Payne is inel­i­gi­ble for the death…

Public sup­port for the death penal­ty again polled at a half-cen­tu­ry low, with oppo­si­tion remain­ing at its high­est lev­el since May 1966, accord­ing to the 2021 Gallup poll on Americans’ atti­tudes about capital…

Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt has grant­ed clemen­cy to death-row pris­on­er Julius Jones…

Nebraska, which had no plans for hous­ing a female death-row pris­on­er, has nar­row­ly avoid­ed hav­ing to address that fail­ure, as a divid­ed three-judge pan­el on November 8, 2021 sen­tenced Bailey Boswell to life in prison with­out pos­si­bil­i­ty of…

Mississippi car­ried out its first exe­cu­tion in more than nine years on November 17, 2021, putting to death a man with men­tal health dis­or­ders who had waived his appeals. David Neal Cox became at least the 150^th per­son since exe­cu­tions resumed in the United States in 1977 to drop their appeals and ​“vol­un­teer” for exe­cu­tion. Executions of vol­un­teers account for 10% of all U.S. exe­cu­tions in that…

Two Japanese death-row pris­on­ers have filed a law­suit alleg­ing that the country’s long-crit­i­cized prac­tice of noti­fy­ing pris­on­ers of their exe­cu­tion the same day they are to be put to death is ​“inhu­mane” and vio­lates the nation’s…

South Carolina cor­rec­tion­al staff who par­tic­i­pat­ed in exe­cu­tions suf­fered life-alter­ing trau­ma that was wors­ened by an inflex­i­ble prison admin­is­tra­tion that pro­vid­ed lit­tle sup­port to address the psy­cho­log­i­cal injuries they sus­tained. Two senior staff mem­bers are now on dis­abil­i­ty, unable to work, and are suf­fer­ing from Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Depression. A third mem­ber of the exe­cu­tion team end­ed his own life by…

A Nashville judge has for a sec­ond time approved a plea deal that would remove Abu-Ali Abdur’Rahman from Tennessee​’s death row and resen­tence him to life with­out pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole. On November 9, 2021, Davidson County Criminal Court Judge Monte Watkins entered an order over­turn­ing Abdur’Rahman’s 1987 con­vic­tion based on for­mer Davidson County Assistant District Attorney General John Zimmerman’s uncon­sti­tu­tion­al use of…