Publications & Testimony

A new report pub­lished by Ius Stella, a non-prof­it in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), high­lights ongo­ing human rights vio­la­tions in the nation’s efforts to elim­i­nate urban gangs, which has been marked by arbi­trary arrest and the impo­si­tion of death sen­tences, includ­ing on vul­ner­a­ble civil­ian youth pop­u­la­tions, after mil­i­tary tri­als whose fair­ness is in grave doubt. Earlier in January, reports emerged that 170 death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers, ages 18 to 35, con­vict­ed for their links to…

South Carolina law requires Brad Sigmon to​“elect” how the state will kill him on March 7, 2025 — and he opt­ed for death by fir­ing squad. His choic­es were lethal injec­tion, elec­tro­cu­tion, or fir­ing squad, with elec­tro­cu­tion the default method of exe­cu­tion if no elec­tion is made. According to Mr. Sigmon’s attor­ney, Gerald​“Bo” King, Mr. Sigmon chose the fir­ing squad out of con­cern about prob­lems with the state’s lethal injection…

On February 28, 2025, Alabama Governor Kay Ivey com­mut­ed the death sen­tence of Robin​‘Rocky’ Dion Myers to Life Without Parole (LWOP). Myers was con­vict­ed in the 1991 mur­der of Ludie Mae Tucker in Decatur, Alabama. His jury rec­om­mend­ed that he be sen­tenced to LWOP, but the judge in his case over­rode the jury’s rec­om­men­da­tion and hand­ed down a death sen­tence. The prac­tice of judi­cial over­ride was abol­ished in Alabama in 2017. In her state­ment, Gov. Ivey repeated her…

In the February 2025 episode of 12:01: The Death Penalty in Context, DPI Managing Director Anne Holsinger speaks with three experts on California’s Racial Justice Act (RJA). Natasha Minsker, an attor­ney and con­sul­tant, for­mer­ly of the ACLU, speaks on the his­to­ry of the RJA and the impe­tus for its pas­sage. Genevie Gold, research and writ­ing fel­low at the Office of the State Public Defender (OSPD), describes the process that an RJA claim fol­lows through the legal sys­tem, and…

On February 19, 2025, in new fil­ings, Robert Roberson returned to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) with a request for relief, pre­sent­ing sub­stan­tial new evi­dence that sup­ports his claim of actu­al inno­cence. Mr. Roberson’s lat­est habeas appli­ca­tion incor­po­rates new expert opin­ions and ref­er­ences sci­en­tif­ic advance­ments that have emerged since October 2024, when the CCA acknowl­edged in a sim­i­lar case that the sci­en­tif­ic foun­da­tion for​“Shaken Baby”…

In a 5 – 3 deci­sion issued in Glossip v. Oklahoma on February 25, 2025, the United States Supreme Court threw out Richard Glossip’s 2004 con­vic­tion for arrang­ing the mur­der of Barry Von Treese and ordered a new tri­al because pros­e­cu­tors allowed a key wit­ness to lie in court and with­held cru­cial infor­ma­tion about the same wit­ness. Justice Sonya Sotomayor, writ­ing for the major­i­ty, said that pros­e­cu­tors in Mr. Glossip’s case​“vio­lat­ed [their] constitutional…

A new report from the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), Unreliable Verdicts: Racial Bias and Wrongful Convictions, explores the his­to­ry of racial bias in jury selec­tion in the United States, includ­ing the last 40 years of racial­­ly-dis­­crim­i­­na­­to­ry pre­emp­to­ry jury strikes, and high­lights the grow­ing body of research show­ing that jury bias is reduced and the delib­er­a­tive process enhanced when juries are more diverse. Looking at the pool of doc­u­ment­ed death penalty…