Publications & Testimony

On December 12, 2023 U.S. District Judge Michael P. Mills over­turned Terry Pitchford’s death sen­tence and ordered Mississippi to retry him in 6 months or release him from cus­tody. Judge Mills found that the orig­i­nal tri­al judge failed to allow the defense to prop­er­ly chal­lenge the exclu­sion of Black jurors by now-retired District Attorney Doug Evans, the same pros­e­cu­tor who pros­e­cut­ed Curtis Flowers. ​“This court can­not ignore the notion that Pitchford was seem­ing­ly giv­en no chance to rebut the state’s expla­na­tions and prove pur­pose­ful dis­crim­i­na­tion,” Judge Mills wrote.

On December 18, Pennsylvania dropped all homi­cide charges against Noel Montalvo, twen­ty years after he was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in York County. Mr. Montalvo (pic­tured) pled guilty to one count of tam­per­ing with evi­dence in exchange for release and one year on pro­ba­tion. The Death Penalty Information Center has deter­mined that Mr. Montalvo meets the cri­te­ria for inclu­sion on our exon­er­a­tion list because the charges that placed him on death row have been dismissed. 

On December 14, 2023, Lake County, Florida pros­e­cu­tors announced they are seek­ing the death penal­ty for a man accused of com­mit­ting the sex­u­al bat­tery of a minor under the age of twelve. A state­ment from the office of State Attorney William Gladson said the deci­sion reflects the ​“sever­i­ty of the crime and its impact on the com­mu­ni­ty.” Earlier this year, Governor Ron DeSantis signed leg­is­la­tion that expands death penal­ty eli­gi­bil­i­ty to those con­vict­ed of sex crimes against chil­dren. This is the first case in which Florida pros­e­cu­tors have sought a…

On Wednesday, December 13, the U.S. Supreme Court grant­ed cer­tio­rari in Thornell v. Jones, its first death penal­ty case to be heard at oral argu­ment in the 2023 term. Unlike most death penal­ty cas­es that seek Supreme Court review, the peti­tion­er here is the state of Arizona, which asks the Court to reverse the Ninth Circuit’s grant of relief for death-sen­tenced pris­on­er Danny Lee Jones (pic­tured). The Ninth Circuit held that Mr. Jones demon­strat­ed inef­fec­tive assis­tance of coun­sel at his sen­tenc­ing phase under Strickland v. Washington (1984). So far this…

A new report released by the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty high­lights Texas’ con­tin­u­ing out­lier prac­tices in the admin­is­tra­tion of the death penal­ty. As one of just five states car­ry­ing out exe­cu­tions this year, Texas is respon­si­ble for a third of the 24 exe­cu­tions in 2023. Of the eight men exe­cut­ed, six dis­played sig­nif­i­cant intel­lec­tu­al or men­tal health impair­ments, includ­ing brain dam­age, intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty, and a range of men­tal ill­ness­es. ​“The vast major­i­ty of indi­vid­u­als exe­cut­ed by Texas in 2023 had sig­nif­i­cant men­tal impair­ments. What is even more appalling…

A pro­posed death penal­ty repeal bill in the Ohio leg­is­la­ture is draw­ing atten­tion to the state’s five-year pause on exe­cu­tions, and lead­ing state offi­cials from both par­ties to ques­tion whether the death penal­ty sys­tem is work­ing. Ohio Attorney General David Yost (pic­tured) summed up the sit­u­a­tion by say­ing, ​“This sys­tem sat­is­fies nobody. Those who oppose the death penal­ty want it abol­ished alto­geth­er, not tick­ing away like a time bomb that might or might not explode. Those who sup­port the death penal­ty want it to be fair, time­ly and effec­tive. Neither…

In a recent­ly pub­lished aca­d­e­m­ic arti­cle, Emory University History Professor Daniel LaChance writes about an impor­tant and under­rec­og­nized dis­tinc­tion in the way news­pa­per edi­tors and jour­nal­ists cov­ered the exe­cu­tions of Black and white men in the late 19^th and ear­ly 20^th cen­turies. Professor LaChance argues that the por­tray­als of the defen­dants made legal exe­cu­tions ​“a high-sta­tus pun­ish­ment that respect­ed the white­ness of those who suf­fered it.” While the length and detail of arti­cles about the exe­cu­tions of Black men shrank dra­mat­i­cal­ly over time, he notes that jour­nal­ists con­sis­tent­ly high­light­ed the…

In North Carolina, a coali­tion of activists is call­ing on Governor Roy Cooper to com­mute the death sen­tences of 136 peo­ple ​“as an act of racial jus­tice” before he leaves office in 2024. Edward ​“Ed” Chapman, a death row exoneree who spent 14 years on death row, along with oth­er advo­cates with the North Carolina Coalition for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, are urg­ing Gov. Cooper to grant clemen­cy to all death-sen­tenced indi­vid­u­als in North Carolina ​“because of the injus­tices of the death penal­ty and North Carolina’s crim­i­nal legal system…

In this month’s episode of Discussions with DPIC, Managing Director Anne Holsinger speaks with John Bessler (pic­tured), Professor of Law at the University of Baltimore School of Law. Professor Bessler is the author of sev­er­al books on the death penal­ty, includ­ing his 2023 book The Death Penalty’s Denial of Fundamental Human Rights: International Law, State Practice, and the Emerging Abolitionist Norm. In his most recent book, Professor Bessler argues that the death penal­ty should be clas­si­fied as tor­ture, which would pro­hib­it its use under inter­na­tion­al law and treaties. The reality…

On November 30, 2023, the Mississippi Supreme Court ordered that the state’s request to set an exe­cu­tion date for death row pris­on­er Willie Manning be held until the court rules on a recent peti­tion seek­ing to bring new evi­dence of Mr. Manning’s inno­cence. Mr. Manning’s attor­neys had filed a peti­tion at the court on September 29, ask­ing for an oppor­tu­ni­ty to present recan­ta­tions from jail­house infor­mants who tes­ti­fied against Mr. Manning, as well as new expert analy­sis debunk­ing the unsci­en­tif­ic foren­sic evi­dence that was used against him at tri­al. The…