Entries tagged with “Articles of Interest”
Jan 14, 2026
New Analysis of Racial Bias and Death Eligibility in 2025
Justin D. Levinson and Rachel G. Schaefer recently published Flawed Framework, Fatal Discretion: Unraveling Implicit Bias in Capital Punishment Decisions. The article synthesizes multiple studies examining the role of implicit bias among key decisionmakers within the legal system. The authors use this research as evidence of both the historical and ongoing influence of implicit bias on the administration of the death penalty. In 2025, 75% of defendants against whom state prosecutors across…
Oct 31, 2025
Article of Interest: New Report Highlights How De Facto Abolition Status Hides the “Human, Political and Legal Effects” of Retaining Death Penalty Laws
A new report published on the 40th anniversary of the United Nation’s creation of the ‘abolitionist de facto’ (ADF) category, Between Retention and Abolition: Making Sense of a Death Penalty Without Executions, examines the legal, political, and symbolic role of the death penalty in countries that retain the death penalty but have either not carried out an execution in 10 years or have established an official moratorium. Authored by researchers at UK-based The Death Penalty Project and The…
Apr 24, 2025
Two New Law Review Articles Highlight Cause and Effect of Brady Violations
One fundamental principle of fairness upon which our criminal justice system relies is the notion that prosecutors must disclose exculpatory, material evidence favorable to defendants. This Constitutional obligation, established in Brady v. Maryland (1963), represents a critical safeguard against wrongful convictions. Nevertheless, Brady violations remain disturbingly common, with devastating consequences for defendants who may spend years or decades wrongly imprisoned. The Death Penalty…
Mar 31, 2025
Articles of Interest: Adverse Childhood Experiences, Their Effects on Mental Health, and the Connection to Legal System Involvement
This month marks the 20th anniversary of the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in Roper v. Simmons. In a series of posts anticipating the April 2025 release of DPI’s report commemorating the 20th Anniversary of the Roper decision and its implications for emerging adults , we are exploring scientific and legal developments related to juveniles and emerging adults in the death penalty system. Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) refer to potentially traumatic events and circumstances that…
Mar 13, 2025
Articles of Interest: What Experts are Saying About Emerging Adult Behavioral Development Since Roper v. Simmons
Twenty years ago this month, the Supreme Court in its landmark decision Roper v. Simmons found capital punishment for individuals under 18 years of age unconstitutional under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. In explaining their decision, the Court drew in part on “scientific and sociological” studies showing that a lack of maturity in youth can lead to “impetuous and ill-considered actions and decisions,” which supported the idea that this cohort were less culpable and therefore should not…
New Voices
,Feb 24, 2025
Article of Interest: Cato Institute Fellow Critiques Medical Ethics Double Standard Around Executions
In a February blog post, Cato Institute Senior Fellow Jeffrey A. Singer criticizes the use of medicalized lethal injection, highlighting the double standard under which procedures that medical professionals are ethically barred from carrying out are not only allowed, but required, of law enforcement personnel. “A doctor who intentionally performs cruel and medically unjustifiable procedures that cause pain and suffering could face criminal charges. If the patient dies, the doctor could face…
Feb 20, 2025
Article of Interest: New Equal Justice Initiative Report Shines a Spotlight on Historic Patterns of Jury Discrimination and the Role of Non-Diverse Juries in Wrongful Convictions
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…
Sep 17, 2024
Article of Interest: Former U.S. Judge Andy Lester Calls on Oklahoma to Implement Reforms to “Badly Broken” Capital Punishment System Before Continuing Executions
“From start to finish, it is so badly broken that we cannot know whether someone who has been condemned to death is actually deserving of the ultimate penalty,” wrote former U.S. Magistrate Judge Andy Lester in a September 12, 2024 op-ed for The Oklahoman. Before carrying out any new executions, Mr. Lester calls on the state to implement new reforms to its “broken” capital punishment system. Although the Oklahoma Death Penalty Review Commission provided 45 specific recommendations and one…
Research
Sep 05, 2024
Research Roundup: Revisiting David Baldus’s Study to Examine Modern Day Use of the Death Penalty
DPI’s new series focuses on academic research and articles in the field of capital punishment. This month’s article is “Sacred Victims: Fifty Years of Data on Victim Race and Sex as Predictors of Execution,” in The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, co-authored by Professors Scott Phillips (Department of Sociology & Criminology), Justin Marceau, Sam Kamin, and a J.D. program alumna, Nicole King, from the Sturm College of Law at the University of Denver. The authors’ hypothesis is that…
Research
Jul 12, 2024
Articles of Interest: Op-ed says new Tennessee law that expands the death penalty to child rape “creates more problems than it solves.”
A July 7, 2024 op-ed in the Tennessean argues that the recent enaction of SB 1834, which makes the rape of a child punishable by death, “does more harm than good.” Sarah McGee (pictured), coordinator for Tennesseans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, explains that during her work as a victim-witness coordinator for Davidson County District Attorney’s Office, probation officer, and assistant public defender, she “learned that when child service providers and experts, the people caring for…
Research
New Voices
,Jun 25, 2024
Articles of Interest: A Look at the Difficulties Faced by Fathers on North Carolina’s Death Row
A June 18, 2024 article published in the Assembly examines the complicated relationships fathers on North Carolina’s death row have with their children, as they grapple daily with the uncertainty of their sentence. The author, Waverly McIver, highlights the hardship these families endure through the experiences of two death-sentenced prisoners, Jason Hurst and Terry Robinson. According to Warden Jamel James of North Carolina’s Central Prison, home to all death-sentenced prisoners in the state…
Issues
May 09, 2024
Articles of Interest: Los Angeles Times Editorial Board Says Systemic Racism in California Death Penalty Is Just One of Many Reasons for Abolition
In a May 7, 2024 editorial, the Los Angeles Times Editorial Board cites the deeply engrained racial disparities in the California death penalty system and how those facts led them to conclude that “even if the state could perform painless and anxiety-free executions and racial biases were eliminated, the death penalty would still be wrong.” “Black defendants were 4.6 to 8.7 times more likely to be sentenced to death than other defendants facing similar charges” the Board notes, and “Latinos…
Issues
May 03, 2024
Articles of Interest: Former Pennsylvania Death Row Prisoner Jimmy Dennis Awarded Compensation After Years-Long Legal Battle
On April 25, 2024, a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania jury awarded $16 million to former death row prisoner Jimmy Dennis (pictured), who was wrongfully convicted and spent 25 years in prison. Following nine days of trial, jurors determined that the city of Philadelphia owes Mr. Dennis $10 million, and the two detectives who “engaged in malicious or wanton misconduct” owe him an additional $3 million each. Mr. Dennis was sentenced to death in 1991 for a murder he maintained he could not have…
Research
New Voices
,May 02, 2024
Articles of Interest: Missouri and Oklahoma Corrections Officials Describe Psychological Toll of Performing Executions
An April 28, 2024 report by Ed Pilkington in The Guardian chronicles the trauma experiences by prison officials assigned to carry out executions. Oklahoma correctional officers asked Attorney General Gentner Drummond to slow the pace of executions, citing “lasting trauma,” Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and alcohol abuse among staff due to frequent executions in the state. Former corrections director Justin Jones told Mr. Pilkington, “It affects your mental state when it becomes so routine,”…
Issues
Apr 25, 2024
Articles of Interest: Juror Who Sentenced Toforest Johnson to Death Now Believes He Is Innocent
Monique Hicks, one of the twelve people who served on the Alabama jury that convicted Toforest Johnson and sentenced him to death, said in an op-ed published on April 22, 2024 that she now believes Mr. Johnson deserves a new trial. Ms. Hicks recounts the new evidence that has come to light in the case and writes, “My role in the wrongful conviction of an innocent man keeps me awake at night.” Mr. Johnson’s conviction rested on the testimony of a single witness who, despite not knowing Mr.
Executions
Apr 23, 2024
Articles of Interest: Reprieve Issues New Report on Botched Executions and Racial Disparities
A new report issued April 17, 2024 by the UK-based international human rights organization Reprieve found racial disparities in the occurrence of botched executions in the United States. As reported in The Guardian, Reprieve analyzed all lethal injection executions between 1976 and 2023. It chronicled 73 confirmed botched procedures and found that 8% of executions of Black people were botched (37 times out of 465 executions), compared with 4% for white people (28 out of 780).