Publications & Testimony

On April 8, 2026, the Mississippi Legislature enact­ed Senate Bill 2821, cre­at­ing the new offense of​“cap­i­tal sex­u­al bat­tery” and autho­riz­ing the death penal­ty for the sex­u­al abuse, or attempt­ed sex­u­al abuse of a child under 12 years of age that results in​“injury to the child’s sex­u­al organs.” Mississippi Governor Tate Reaves approved the leg­is­la­tion, which will take effect July 1, 2026. With its pas­sage, Mississippi joins Florida (2023), Tennessee (2024), Idaho…

A South Carolina cir­cuit court judge has found that death-sen­­tenced pris­on­er John Wood can­not be exe­cut­ed because of his severe schiz­o­phre­nia. The con­sti­tu­tion­al thresh­olds estab­lished by the U.S. Supreme Court in Ford v. Wainwright (1986) and clar­i­fied in Panetti v. Quarterman (2007) and Madison v. Alabama (2018) deter­mine that a pris­on­er may not be exe­cut­ed if they are unable to ratio­nal­ly under­stand the rea­son they are being put to death. Judge Grace Knie…

On death row, pris­on­ers expe­ri­ence some of the harsh­est con­di­tions in the American prison sys­tem, which often take a severe psy­cho­log­i­cal and phys­i­cal toll. Despite these chal­lenges, many death-sen­­tenced pris­on­ers com­plete­ly trans­form in prison — they become remorse­ful, accept respon­si­bil­i­ty, and devote them­selves to edu­ca­tion, men­tor­ship, faith, and advo­ca­cy. Their sto­ries stand in stark con­trast to the com­mon nar­ra­tive that peo­ple sen­tenced to death…

On April 24, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) released a report propos­ing an expan­sion of the fed­er­al death penal­ty, includ­ing adding fir­ing squad, elec­tro­cu­tion, and lethal gas as exe­cu­tion meth­ods. The DOJ char­ac­ter­izes the Biden Administration’s mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions as​“an unprece­dent­ed break from the [DOJ]’s long­stand­ing approach to the death penal­ty,” while cast­ing this new effort as a return to form. The DOJ fur­ther claims that the three…

Today, the state of Texas plans to exe­cute James Broadnax, a Black man who chal­lenged the state for its dis­crim­i­na­to­ry use of peremp­to­ry strikes to exclude every Black juror at his tri­al, in vio­la­tion of the U.S. Supreme Court’s land­mark deci­sion in Batson v. Kentucky (1986). Barring a last-minute stay, Mr. Broadnax’s exe­cu­tion will coin­cide with the 40^th anniver­sary of Batson that put race at the fore­front of the jury selec­tion process. Racial bias in jury selection…

On April 24, 2026, the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Policy released a detailed report, Restoring and Strengthening the Federal Death Penalty, call­ing on the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to rein­state use of a sin­­gle-drug (pen­to­bar­bi­tal) exe­cu­tion pro­to­col, and urg­ing Congress to enact sweep­ing leg­isla­tive changes that would expand the reach and speed of the fed­er­al death penal­ty. Alongside the release of the report, DOJ announced that it has direct­ed BOP to…