Publications & Testimony

Florida is poised to become the state with the nation’s lowest threshold for juries to recommend death sentences, after the state legislature passed a bill allowing a judge to impose death if at least eight out of twelve jurors agree. Most states, including Florida, have required a unanimous jury verdict to recommend death. Governor Ron DeSantis (pictured) is expected to sign the bill, following the House’s approval on April 13, 2023. Alabama requires at least 10 jurors to approve a death…

On March 31, 2023, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost released the state’s annual Capital Crimes report for 2022. According to the report, the average time prisoners spend on the state’s death row before an execution date is set is nearly 21 years – a number that has consistently increased with each annual report. Even when an execution date is set, a prisoner “is more likely to die of suicide or natural causes than as a result of execution,” due to the ongoing difficulty in obtaining lethal…

The following law review articles by several key death penalty researchers were recently published in 107 Cornell Law Review, No. 6, September, 2022. They cover a variety of issues, such as the interplay between race and capital punishment, the history of the death penalty, the federal death penalty, sentencing trends, and the federal court’s role in capital punishment: Explaining the Invidious: How Race Influences Capital Punishment in America – Johnson, Sheri Lynn (pictured). Getting to…

In He Called Me Sister: A True Story of Finding Humanity on Death Row, author Suzanne Craig Robertson details her journey from reluctance to true friendship during her challenging fifteen-year relationship with Cecil Johnson, a Tennessee death-row prisoner, who was executed in December 2009. Using letters, poems, and a personal memoir written by Johnson, Robertson tells their mutual story of perseverance, recalling that “differences don’t have to be barriers.” In the Preface, journalist Bill…

On April 9, 2023, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette called upon Attorney General Merrick Garland to withdraw the government’s pursuit of the death penalty and accept a plea deal for a mandatory life sentence in the mass shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018. The editors noted that seeking a death sentence: “would, in effect, re-enact the worst case of anti-Semitic violence in U.S. history through witness testimony, media coverage and appeals that could continue for up to 20 years.” The trial…

The Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC), with the support of the Foreign Office of the Federal Government of Germany, recently undertook a project examining the U.S. death penalty through a human rights lens. DPIC has added a series of human rights pages to its website, reframing three aspects of the death penalty – race, conditions of confinement, and executions – in light of human rights norms and treaties. The page on U.S. executions highlights various human rights issues related to…

An editorial in the Dallas Morning News urges the Texas legislature to pass a bill to ban the death penalty for people with severe mental illness, stating, it “seems like an obvious decision in a decent society.” House Bill 727, sponsored by Rep. Toni Rose (D‑Dallas), passed the Texas House on April 5, 2023, by a vote of 97 – 48 and is pending before the Texas Senate. “While the Supreme Court has banned the death penalty for juvenile offenders and people with intellectual disabilities, Texans…

On April 6, 2023, Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond asked the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals to vacate Richard Glossip’s conviction and death sentence and to remand the case to the District Court for further proceedings. He cited the U.S. Supreme Court’s admonition that the prosecutor’s interest is “not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done.” Regarding his motion to the court, Drummond said: “After thorough and serious deliberation, I have concluded that I…

Stephen Oliphant’s recent study on the death penalty’s effect on homicide rates published in Criminology & Public Policy found “no evidence of a deterrent effect attributable to death penalty statutes.” Oliphant first discusses deterrence theory, which “posits that punishment, or the threat of punishment, discourages individuals from committing crime,” and its role in capital punishment discourse, where proponents of the death penalty have argued that the threat of the death penalty discourages…

In their forthcoming book, “The Fear of Too Much Justice: Race, Poverty, and the Persistence of Inequality in the Criminal Courts,” renowned death-penalty attorney Stephen B. Bright and legal scholar James Kwak describe the many ways in which the U.S. legal system fails to uphold the constitutional rights of defendants, especially poor defendants and people of color. Bestselling author John Grisham said of the book, “Only Steve Bright could write such a clear and poignant indictment of…