Publications & Testimony

On May 15, 2025, the Utah Supreme Court unan­i­mous­ly upheld a low­er court’s deci­sion vacat­ing Douglas Carter’s (pic­tured) con­vic­tion and death sen­tence and order­ing a new tri­al. The Court found that Utah County pros­e­cu­tors vio­lat­ed Mr. Carter’s con­sti­tu­tion­al rights on mul­ti­ple occa­sions with their​“inten­tion­al mis­con­duct” dur­ing his 1985 tri­al that accused him of caus­ing the death of Eva Olesen dur­ing a home inva­sion. In November 2023, Utah County District…

On April 16, 2025, Wyandotte County District Judge Bill Klapper issued his order in the com­bined cas­es of Hugo Villaneuva-Morales and Antoine Fielder, broad­ly con­demn­ing the Kansas death penal­ty as cost­ly, racial­ly biased, and inef­fec­tive as a deter­rent. Judge Klapper’s order fol­lows an exten­sive evi­den­tiary hear­ing and pro­vides thor­ough and detailed find­ings on an array of con­sti­tu­tion­al ques­tions relat­ed to the use of the death penal­ty in the state. Mr.

The Idaho Department of Corrections (IDOC) has admit­ted to spend­ing $200,000 on lethal injec­tion exe­cu­tion drugs since 2023, all of which have since expired with­out use. Josh Tewalt, the for­mer direc­tor of IDOC said in recent court fil­ings that the drugs in IDOC’s pos­ses­sion expired because of repeat­ed delays asso­ci­at­ed with sched­ul­ing an exe­cu­tion. Sanda Kuzeta-Cerimagic, an IDOC spokesper­son, told the Idaho Statesman that the depart­ment does not currently have…

In com­mem­o­ra­tion of the 20^th anniver­sary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s land­mark deci­sion end­ing the juve­nile death penal­ty, the Death Penalty Information Center (DPI) has released a new report: Immature Minds in a​“Maturing Society”: Roper v. Simmons at 20, detail­ing the grow­ing sup­port for the idea that indi­vid­u­als ages 18, 19, and 20 should receive the same age-appro­pri­ate con­sid­er­a­tions that juve­niles now receive in death penal­ty cas­es. The report also reveals…

In this month’s pod­cast episode of 12:01: The Death Penalty in Context, DPI’s Managing Director Anne Holsinger speaks with Professors Craig Haney and Frank Baumgartner, and DPI’s Staff Attorney Leah Roemer about the lega­cy of the US Supreme Court’s deci­sion in Roper v. Simmons and the legal and sci­en­tif­ic land­scape sur­round­ing the use of the death penal­ty for young adults ages 18 – 20. Professors Baumgartner and Haney, along with fel­low researcher Karen Steele,…

On April 11, 2025, Judge Colonel Matthew McCall ruled that con­fes­sions elicit­ed from Ammar al-Baluchi, accused of con­spir­ing in the September 11^th ter­ror­ism attacks, were the result of tor­ture car­ried out by the CIA and as a result can­not be used against Mr. al-Baluchi in any legal pro­ceed­ing. According to Col. McCall, Mr. al-Baluchi invol­un­tar­i­ly incrim­i­nat­ed him­self in 2007 after exten­sive​“psy­cho­log­i­cal con­di­tion­ing” through tor­ture and abuse during his…