Arbitrariness
,Race
,Federal Death Penalty
,Feb 25, 2021
Expressing concerns about wrongful convictions, racially disparate impact, and arbitrariness, Attorney General nominee Merrick Garland (pictured) told the Senate Judiciary Committee during his confirmation hearing on February 22, …
Executions Overview
,Sep 01, 2021
A California trial court has dismissed a lawsuit filed by conservative media commentator John V. Lacy that had challenged the constitutionality of the March 2019 executive order by Governor Gavin Newsom
Executions Overview
,Federal Death Penalty
,Jul 06, 2021
In a memorandum that left to Congress the task of addressing systemic questions of arbitrariness, racial discrimination, and wrongful convictions affecting the administration of the federal death penalty, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garl…
Lethal Injection
,Federal Death Penalty
,Dec 21, 2021
The House Committee on Oversight and Reform has sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland seeking information on the Department of Justice’s death penalty practices and policies, including whether DOJ…
Public Opinion
,Dec 06, 2022
In a year that featured massive campaign advertising attempting to portray legal reformers as responsible for increases in violent crime, candidates committed to criminal legal reform or who promised to continue statewide moratoria on executions p…
Clemency
,Oct 15, 2020
In the October 2020 episode of Discussions with DPIC, former Illinois Governor George Ryan speaks with Death Penalty Information Center Executive Director Robert Dunham about the events that persuaded him to commute the d…
Apr 01, 2021
California Governor Gavin Newsom has appointed Rob Bonta (pictured), a state legislator who co-authored a proposed state constitutional amendment to ban capital punishment, as California’s attorne…
Arbitrariness
,Innocence
,Race
,Federal Death Penalty
,Aug 12, 2021
Seventeen U.S. Senators and four Members of Congress who are leading the effort to abolish the federal death penalty have called on U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland (pictured) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) to stop seeki…
Clemency
,Federal Death Penalty
,Jun 16, 2021
As the Department of Justice filed a brief in the U.S. Supreme Court seeking reinstatement of the death sentence imposed on Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in the Boston Marathon bombing, the White House press office issued a s…
Costs
,Sentencing Alternatives
,Recent Legislative Activity
,Jul 21, 2020
Calling capital punishment a “luxury” that the state can no longer afford, Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon (pictured) told legislators that he is “very seriously” considering imposing a moratorium on the state’s rarely-used death pen…
New Voices
,May 12, 2022
Saying that recent events in Texas’ attempt to execute death-row prisoner Melissa Lucio had shaken his faith in the criminal legal system, an influential Republican state legislator has said that he would now supp…
Innocence
,Clemency
,Recent Legislative Activity
,Federal Death Penalty
,Jan 07, 2022
As 2021 came to a close, editorial writers in four death penalty states called for legislative and executive action to end capital punishment or further limit its use. Editorial boards for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
