Publications & Testimony

Clarence Brandley (pictured) was wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death in 1981 in Texas for the rape and murder of a 16-year-old white girl. From the outset, he was targeted based on his race. On the day of the murder, a police officer said to the two janitors at the school who had found the deceased, “One of you two is going to hang for this.” Then, turning to Brandley, said, “Since you’re the n****r, you’re elected.” Brandley was finally exonerated and freed from Texas’ death row in…

Dr. Joseph Thornton, a psychiatrist who formerly treated death row prisoners as the medical director of a Florida maximum security prison, called for an end to the death penalty for those with severe mental illness: “We should not be executing anyone, let alone the sick and the broken,” he said. “As someone with over 40 years’ experience seeing patients with serious mental illness who are stigmatized, ostracized and blamed for their symptoms, I believe that recovery care, not ostracization…

Prominent death penalty attorney, founder and Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative, Bryan Stevenson (pictured with President Joe Biden), was awarded the National Humanities Medal on March 21, 2023 at the White House. The president commended Stevenson for his long-term efforts to represent the impoverished and exonerate the wrongfully convicted, in addition to founding the Legacy Museum and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, both located in Montgomery, Alabama. The…

In a forthcoming update to their groundbreaking 2018 research on the importance of mitigation in death penalty cases, researchers Russell Stetler, Maria McLaughlin, and Dana Cook (pictured) have greatly expanded the number of capital cases reviewed and drawn the conclusion that “the effective investigation and presentation of mitigating evidence can forestall a death sentence no matter how death-worthy the crime facts may appear at first glance.” Their study — titled “Mitigation Works” — focused on…

After years of silence regarding his views on the death penalty, Governor John Bel Edwards of Louisiana expressed his opposition to capital punishment in a seminar at Loyola University in New Orleans. On March 22, 2023, Edwards said, “The death penalty is so final. When you make a mistake, you can’t get it back. And we know that mistakes have been made in sentencing people to death.” Edwards based his opposition to the death penalty on his religious faith and said it was “fortuitous” that a…

Idaho will become the fifth state to authorize the firing squad as a method of execution and may become the first state to mandatorily impose it on a death row prisoner since 1976. Idaho’s Governor Brad Little signed HB 186 into law on March 24, 2023, and it goes into effect on July 1. The law gives the director of the Idaho Department of Correction up to five days after a death warrant is issued to determine if lethal injection is available. If it is declared unavailable, the execution will be…

According to the Louisiana Public Defender’s Office, the state spent $7.7 million on the legal representation of defendants in death penalty cases just in 2022. That total does not include the costs of prosecutors, judges, and other criminal justice personnel. The state has not carried out an execution in 13 years and has had only one execution in the past 21 years. State officials have attributed the most recent execution delays to difficulties obtaining the drugs needed for lethal injection…

An in-depth piece in the Huffington Post examines Harris County’s (Texas) system for providing representation to those facing the death penalty who cannot afford their own attorney. The process is explored through the story of Obel Cruz-Garcia, a prisoner on Texas’ death row. The author described his case: “Like most people who end up on death row, Cruz-Garcia could not afford to hire a lawyer for the resource-intensive process of a capital trial, and Harris County, Texas, doesn’t offer public…

In the latest episode of “Discussions with DPIC,” Robert Dunham, former Executive Director of DPIC, interviews Karen Steele (pictured), a researcher and defense attorney in Oregon, regarding the special characteristics of late adolescent defendants facing the death penalty. Research by Steele and others points to the incomplete brain development in those aged 18 – 21 and how that can be exacerbated in those suffering from fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. The research has also found that…

On March 14, 2023, at the direction of Attorney General Merrick Garland (pictured), the U.S. Attorney for the District of North Dakota withdrew the notice of intent to seek a death sentence for Alfonso Rodriguez, Jr., who had been convicted in 2006 of the 2003 kidnapping and killing of college student Dru Sjodin. Rodriguez had originally been sentenced to death in 2007, but U.S. District Court Judge Ralph Erickson reversed the death sentence because of misleading testimony presented at trial…