Publications & Testimony

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…

Arizona…

Calling cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the U.S.​“bro­ken,” 56 elect­ed pros­e­cu­tors from across the coun­try have issued a joint state­ment urg­ing sys­temic changes to end the death penal­ty nation­wide. As an ini­tial step, the pros­e­cu­tors pledged to not seek the death penal­ty​“against peo­ple with intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ties, post-trau­­mat­ic stress dis­or­der, his­to­ries of trau­mat­ic brain injury, or oth­er intel­lec­tu­al or cog­ni­tive chal­lenges that diminish their…

When Oklahoma exe­cut­ed Gilbert Postelle on February 17, 2022, it came with a dubi­ous dis­tinc­tion. The intel­lec­tu­al­ly impaired man who was 18 years old at the time of his offense became the 44^th per­son pros­e­cut­ed in Oklahoma County to be put to death since exe­cu­tions resumed in the U.S. in 1977. His death made the coun­ty the nation’s third-most pro­lif­ic coun­ty exe­cu­tion­er over the past half-cen­­tu­ry, tied with Tarrant…

A high-pro­­file Republican-led effort to abol­ish the death penal­ty in Utah has failed in com­mit­tee by a sin­gle vote. State rep­re­sen­ta­tives in the House Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Committee vot­ed 6 – 5 on February 14, 2022 not to advance a pro­pos­al that would repeal Utah’s death penal­ty and replace it with a new non-cap­i­­tal sen­tenc­ing alternative of…

Nevada pros­e­cu­tors have failed to meet a dead­line to obtain a death war­rant to exe­cute Zane Floyd before its sup­ply of a key lethal-injec­­tion drug expires, indef­i­nite­ly extend­ing the near 16-year pause between executions…

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Autopsy results for an Oklahoma death-row pris­on­er whose exe­cu­tion state offi­cials claimed​“was car­ried out … with­out com­pli­ca­tion” have con­firmed eye­wit­ness reports that John Grant like­ly suf­fered a tor­tur­ous death. The autop­sy, con­duct­ed by Tulsa Medical Examiner Jeremy Shelton, M.D., the morn­ing after Grant was exe­cut­ed on October 28, 2021, revealed that Grant suf­fered pul­monary ede­ma and intra­mus­cu­lar hem­or­rhag­ing, and…

At least three Nevada exe­cu­tion per­son­nel backed out of par­tic­i­pat­ing in Zane Floyd​’s (pic­tured, right) exe­cu­tion after a U.S. dis­trict judge asked about their edu­ca­tion and train­ing. The per­son­nel, includ­ing a doc­tor and two emer­gency med­ical tech­ni­cians, declined to par­tic­i­pate after U.S. District Judge Richard Boulware II asked the state to pro­vide him with their cre­den­tial infor­ma­tion. Another doc­tor was exclud­ed by the…

Oklahoma is pay­ing $15,000 per exe­cu­tion, plus $1,000 for each day of train­ing, to an unnamed doc­tor to par­tic­i­pate in the process of putting state pris­on­ers to death. Under the agree­ment, the doc­tor stood to receive an esti­mat­ed $130,000 over the course of the 19-week-per­i­od between October 28, 2021 and March 10, 2022 in which the state had sched­uled the executions of…