Publications & Testimony

An independent investigation into Tennessee’s execution practices has found that the state repeatedly failed to follow its own protocols in performing seven executions and preparing for an eighth between 2018 and 2022. Governor Bill Lee (pictured) commissioned the investigation in May 2022, shortly after he called off the execution of Oscar Smith “[d]ue to an oversight in preparation for lethal injection.” The report, which was publicly released on December 28, 2022, found that the same…

A Dallas County judge has recommended that the conviction and death sentence of a Jewish death-row prisoner be overturned because his trial was poisoned by the virulent anti-Semitic bigotry of the Texas judge who presided over his case. In a scathing 42-page set of fact findings issued on December 13, 2022, Judge Lela Lawrence May (pictured, left) recommended that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) grant a new trial to Randy Halprin (pictured, right), finding that former Dallas County…

Fulfilling a pledge made while campaigning for office, Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema on December 23, 2022 signed legislation abolishing the nation’s death penalty (pictured). Zambia’s repeal of its colonial-era capital punishment law made it the 25^th sub-Saharan nation in Africa to abolish the death penalty. The new law also removed the offense of criminal defamation of the President from Zambia’s penal code. In announcing the repeals, President Hichilema tweeted: “Promised to amend…

On January 3, 2023, Missouri is set to execute Amber McLaughlin (pictured), the first transgender person scheduled to be put to death in the United States. Tried as Scott McLaughlin, her jury rejected three of the four aggravating circumstances advanced by St. Louis County prosecutors but split on its sentencing verdict. The vast majority of death-penalty states require a unanimous jury vote for death before the death penalty may be imposed. But under Missouri law, a nonunanimous jury vote is…

A Nevada judge has blocked a request from outgoing Governor Steve Sisolak (pictured) that the Nevada Pardons Board consider commuting all death sentences to life without the possibility of parole. Gov. Sisolak proposed on December 14, 2022 that the board discuss the commutation of the state’s 57 death sentences at its December 20 meeting. Just one day before that meeting was set to take place, Carson City District Court Judge James Wilson Jr. blocked the discussion and ruled that the proposal…

With the support of a record 125 nations, the United Nations General Assembly has overwhelmingly adopted a resolution calling for a global moratorium on the use of the death penalty with a view towards its ultimate abolition. The United States voted no, placing it in the company of Iran, Iraq, Saudia Arabia, China, North Korea, and Vietnam. The final vote, taken on the 15^th anniversary of the General Assembly’s first adoption of a moratorium resolution on December 15, 2007, was 125 nations in…

The three final executions scheduled in 2022 highlighted broader trends in the year’s executions — the execution of vulnerable defendants, unavailability of lethal-injection drugs, and the scheduling of executions without regard for the ability to actually carry them out. Mississippi executed Thomas “Eddie” Loden Jr. (pictured) on December 14, the 18^th execution of the year, while two executions set for December 15 — John Hanson’s in Oklahoma and Gerald Pizzuto Jr.’s in Idaho — did not take…

The death penalty continued its long-term decline in the U.S. in 2022, as Oregon commuted its death row and new death sentences and public support for the death penalty remained near 50-year lows. But perhaps more dramatically than anything else, the fortieth anniversary of lethal injection could be known as “the Year of the Botched Execution,” the Death Penalty Information Center said in its 2022 Year End Report. Oregon Governor Kate Brown cleared the state’s death row on December 13…

As part of her response to a series of botched executions, Alabama Governor Kay Ivey has sent a letter to the Alabama Supreme Court asking it to allow the Department of Corrections to extend the time within which executions can be carried out. Governor Ivey’s letter follows her November announcement of a “top-to-bottom review” of the state’s execution procedures. The letter offered no explanation of the execution teams’ length delays in placing IV lines, nor has Governor Ivey made any public…

Calling the death penalty “both dysfunctional and immoral,” Oregon Governor Kate Brown (pictured) has commuted the death sentences of the 17 prisoners on the state’s death row. The commutations, which the governor announced on December 13, 2022, went into effect December 14 and resentenced the prisoners to life without parole. Brown’s commutations are the culmination of what she characterized as “the near abolition of the death penalty” by the state legislature in 2019. At that time, Oregon…