Publications & Testimony

Best-sell­ing author of The Innocent Man and for­mer crim­i­nal defense lawyer John Grisham ​“nev­er, not once” believed that any of the hun­dreds of clients he rep­re­sent­ed were wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed. In a September 5, 2024, op-ed, Mr. Grisham writes that he just assumed the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem always got it right. Now, writ­ing for the sec­ond time about Robert Roberson’s case, Mr. Grisham acknowl­edges that was ​“a wrong assump­tion.” He argues that ​“Robert Roberson is inno­cent because the…

On August 28, 2024, a St. Louis County Circuit Court judge held an evi­den­tiary hear­ing for Marcellus Williams (pic­tured), who has long main­tained his inno­cence in the 1998 mur­der of Felicia Gayle. At this hear­ing, the office of St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney (PA) Wesley Bell con­ced­ed that the pri­or admin­is­tra­tion, under Prosecuting Attorney Bob McCullogh, com­mit­ted con­sti­tu­tion­al errors con­tribut­ing to Mr. Williams’ unre­li­able con­vic­tion and death sen­tence. These errors include the…

DPI’s new series focus­es on aca­d­e­m­ic research and arti­cles in the field of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. This month’s arti­cle is ​“Sacred Victims: Fifty Years of Data on Victim Race and Sex as Predictors of Execution,” in The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, co-authored by Professors Scott Phillips (Department of Sociology & Criminology), Justin Marceau, Sam Kamin, and a J.D. pro­gram alum­na, Nicole King, from the Sturm College of Law at the University of…

The Aprajita Woman and Child (West Bengal Criminal Laws Amendment) Bill, which out­lines the death penal­ty for rape result­ing in the victim’s death or ​“veg­e­ta­tive state,” was adopt­ed by the West Bengal gov­ern­ment in east­ern India on September 3, 2024. Under inter­na­tion­al law, it is unlaw­ful to pre­scribe the death penal­ty for a crime not meet­ing the ​“most seri­ous” crime (e.g., inten­tion­al murder)…

In an August 31, 2024, edi­to­r­i­al from The New York Times, the newspaper’s edi­to­r­i­al board writes that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment is ​“immoral, uncon­sti­tu­tion­al and use­less as a deter­rent to crime,” and asserts that President Joseph Biden should fol­low through with his cam­paign pledge to end the fed­er­al death penal­ty. The Times believes ​“it would be an appro­pri­ate and humane finale to his pres­i­den­cy for Mr. Biden to ful­fill that pledge and try to elim­i­nate the death penal­ty for federal…

In a new edi­to­r­i­al, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette argues that the death penal­ty is ​“nev­er the jus­tice that is called for” and achieves ​“noth­ing of val­ue except the sat­is­fac­tion of vengeance.” The Post-Gazette describes the death of 6‑week-old Leon Katz in June as an ​“almost unfath­omable” crime and a ​“vio­la­tion of pri­mor­dial inno­cence” — but argues that Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr.’s deci­sion to seek the death penal­ty against Nicole Virzi, Leon’s alleged…

On August 21, 2024, attor­neys pre­sent­ed clos­ing argu­ments in the case of North Carolina v. Hasson Bacote, a land­mark law­suit brought under the state’s Racial Justice Act (RJA), the find­ings of which could impact the sen­tences of more than 100 indi­vid­u­als on North Carolina’s death row. Hasson Bacote, a Black man sen­tenced to death in 2009, first filed a law­suit in 2010, argu­ing that racial bias influ­enced the jury selec­tion in his case and all oth­er death penal­ty cas­es throughout North…

Amidst a con­tin­ued post-elec­tion exe­cu­tion surge and increased sup­pres­sion of peace­ful prison protests, Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO) and 67 human rights orga­ni­za­tions across four con­ti­nents expressed their sup­port for the ongo­ing ​“No Death Penalty Tuesdays” week­ly hunger strike move­ment cur­rent­ly span­ning 17 Iranian pris­ons across the coun­try. The August 27, 2024 state­ment, pub­lished a day after the first pub­lic hang­ing of the year, ​“call[ed] for an imme­di­ate halt on all executions…

On August 23, 2024, the South Carolina Department of Corrections announced that the state supreme court has set a September 20, 2024, exe­cu­tion date for Freddie Owens, which would be the first exe­cu­tion in South Carolina since 2011. Mr. Owens was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in 1999 for the killing of a con­ve­nience store clerk in Greenville, South Carolina and he was lat­er con­vict­ed in the mur­der of a cell­mate. In a July 31^st rul­ing, the South Carolina Supreme Court decid­ed that the…