Publications & Testimony

Oklahoma exe­cut­ed Bigler Jobe Stouffer II (pic­tured, at his clemen­cy hear­ing) on December 9, 2021, after Governor Kevin Stitt reject­ing a par­dons board rec­om­men­da­tion to com­mute his sen­tence to life with­out parole and the fed­er­al courts denied his appli­ca­tions to stay his exe­cu­tion. Stouffer, 79, was the old­est pris­on­er put to death in Oklahoma. It was the eleventh and final…

Organizations advo­cat­ing for the rights of abused chil­dren and those with men­tal ill­ness and for fair process are urg­ing the U.S. Supreme Court to, for a sec­ond time, sum­mar­i­ly reverse a Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) deci­sion that upheld the death sen­tence imposed on Terence Andrus (pic­tured) despite defense counsel’s fail­ure to inves­ti­gate and present a​“tidal wave” of avail­able mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence in the penal­ty phase of his…

The Oklahoma Attorney General​’s office has agreed to a stay of exe­cu­tion for a severe­ly men­tal­ly ill death-row pris­on­er who may be incom­pe­tent to be exe­cut­ed, while the state’s Pardon and Parole Board denied clemen­cy to two oth­er pris­on­ers set to be put to death in Oklahoma​’s five-month scheduled execution…

In the December 2021 episode of Discussions with DPIC, Death Penalty Information Center Deputy Director Ngozi Ndulue inter­views State Representative Jean Schmidt (pic­tured) about her work as a pri­ma­ry spon­sor of a bill in the Ohio House of Representatives that would abol­ish cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the state. A long-time Republican elect­ed offi­cial, Rep. Schmidt also served in the U.S. House of Representatives for ten years. She avidly…

More than 2,000 cities across the world lit up mon­u­ments on November 30, 2021 in a glob­al demon­stra­tion to raise aware­ness about the death penal­ty. The inter­na­tion­al cam­paign — called​“Cities for Life” — was orga­nized by the Community of Sant’Egidio, a lay Catholic asso­ci­a­tion dedicated to…

The United States Supreme Court has agreed to con­sid­er Arizona pros­e­cu­tors’ chal­lenge to fed­er­al appel­late court rul­ings allow­ing the con­sid­er­a­tion of evi­dence that was unde­vel­oped in state court due to inef­fec­tive rep­re­sen­ta­tion. The state seeks to over­turn rul­ings in favor of Arizona death-row pris­on­ers Barry Jones and David Ramirez. The men’s cas­es will be heard togeth­er as Shinn v. Ramirez and Jones on December…

The sis­ter of a ter­mi­nal­ly ill death-row pris­on­er who has been in hos­pice care since 2019 has asked the Idaho Commission of Pardons and Parole to rec­om­mend that he be grant­ed clemen­cy so he can​“die on…

Alabama death-row pris­on­er Doyle Lee Hamm (pic­tured), whose botched exe­cu­tion attempt was called off in 2018 after 2½ hours of unsuc­cess­ful attempts to set an intra­venous exe­cu­tion line, has died on death row. He was…

More than 42 years after his wrong­ful cap­i­tal mur­der con­vic­tion in June 1979, a Missouri judge has set Kevin Strickland…

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…