Publications & Testimony

On December 9, 2024, the 10^th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a tem­po­rary stay for Kevin Underwood’s clemen­cy hear­ing sched­uled that same-day with the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board, which is lack­ing its full five-mem­ber com­pli­ment after two res­ig­na­tions in recent months and one last minute addi­tion on December 6. This deci­sion marks the sec­ond time Mr. Underwood’s clemen­cy hear­ing has been can­celed. Meanwhile, Mr. Underwood, age 44, is fac­ing a December 19 exe­cu­tion date, and if it were to…

In let­ters released on December 9, 2024, hun­dreds of stake­hold­ers urged President Joe Biden (pic­tured) to com­mute all fed­er­al death sen­tences before his term ends, cit­ing racial bias, sys­temic arbi­trari­ness, and the fail­ure of the fed­er­al death penal­ty to enhance pub­lic safe­ty. This col­lec­tive request reflects broad, bipar­ti­san acknowl­edge­ment of the flaws in the cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem and aligns with the nation­al down­ward trend of sup­port for the death penal­ty, now at his­toric lows. 40…

The state of Indiana is sched­uled to car­ry out its first exe­cu­tion in 15 years on December 18, 2024, with the sched­uled exe­cu­tion of Joseph Corcoran (pic­tured). Sentenced to death for the 1997 mur­ders of four peo­ple, includ­ing his broth­er, Mr. Corcoran has a long his­to­ry of seri­ous men­tal ill­ness. He has been diag­nosed with schiz­o­phre­nia, which includes symp­toms of hal­lu­ci­na­tions and delu­sions, and mul­ti­ple experts have tes­ti­fied that he is incom­pe­tent to face exe­cu­tion. Mr. Corcoran holds…

In March, Oklahoma offi­cials asked the state’s high court to increase the time between exe­cu­tions from 60 to 90 days, cit­ing the ​“last­ing trau­ma” and ​“psy­cho­log­i­cal toll” of exe­cu­tions on cor­rec­tions offi­cers. But Judge Gary Lumpkin dis­missed these con­cerns, telling offi­cials that prison staff need­ed to ​“suck it up” and ​“man up.” A few weeks lat­er, Brian Dorsey was exe­cut­ed in Missouri after the gov­er­nor ignored the pleas of an unprece­dent­ed 72 cor­rec­tions offi­cers to grant him clemen­cy. ​“We…

According to num­bers report­ed by Agence France-Presse, Saudi Arabia exe­cut­ed 303 peo­ple in 2024 — the nation’s high­est ever total, and cur­rent­ly the sec­ond high­est known exe­cu­tion total world­wide for this year. November alone saw the exe­cu­tion of more than 100 for­eign nation­als, near­ly triple the num­ber in each of the past two years. UN human rights experts expressed con­cern fol­low­ing the December 3 exe­cu­tion of three Egyptian nation­als, call­ing on the gov­ern­ment to halt the pending…

On November 26, 2024, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes announced her office will resume seek­ing exe­cu­tion war­rants. AG Mayes’ announce­ment comes after Governor Katie Hobbs end­ed the state’s inde­pen­dent review of its exe­cu­tion pro­to­col and process­es, dis­miss­ing retired fed­er­al mag­is­trate David Duncan before he had com­plet­ed his review. In a let­ter to Judge Duncan, Gov. Hobbs said his actions dur­ing the review went beyond his man­date. The review was launched in 2023, as new­ly elected Gov.

On November 25, 2024, President Joe Biden par­doned two Thanksgiving turkeys, an annu­al, sym­bol­ic tra­di­tion that high­lights the president’s con­sti­tu­tion­al author­i­ty to issue par­dons and com­mu­ta­tions. Now, as President Biden sets to leave office in January 2025, 60 mem­bers of Congress and many oth­ers are urg­ing him to grant clemen­cy to the 40 men cur­rent­ly on fed­er­al death row. During his 2020 pres­i­den­tial cam­paign, President Biden said he would work to abol­ish the fed­er­al death penalty but…

In a Washington Post op-ed, Chanel Shum, a mem­ber of September 11^th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, explains her sup­port of plea agree­ments that would end decades of legal uncer­tain­ty and sen­tence three of the accused 9/​11 defen­dants to life with­out parole. Ms. Shum was start­ing preschool when her father, See Wong Shum, was killed in the September 11 terrorist…

In this month’s episode of Discussions with DPI, Managing Director Anne Holsinger speaks with Beth Shelburne, a jour­nal­ist who has report­ed on the crim­i­nal legal sys­tem for over 25 years and cre­ator of the pod­cast Earwitness. Released in 2023 to crit­i­cal acclaim, Earwitness tells the sto­ry of Toforest Johnson, a death-sen­tenced man who is fac­ing exe­cu­tion in Alabama despite strong evi­dence of his inno­cence. On November 14, 2024, Mr. Johnson filed a peti­tion with the…