Examining issues in the death penalty system. Brought to you by the Death Penalty Information Center, a non-profit organization serving the media and the public with analysis and information on issues concerning capital punishment.
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In the August 2026 episode of 12:01: The Death Penalty in Context, DPI Racial Justice Storyteller Taylor Bonner speaks with Rafiah Muhammad-McCormick, Director of Community Outreach for Tennesseans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (TADP) and founder of Rodney’s Village, a violence prevention non-profit. A murder victim’s family member and community advocate, Ms. Muhammad-McCormick discusses how the loss of her son shaped her approach to violence prevention and death penalty advocacy, the importance of community accountability, and the resources victims and their families need to heal afte
In the July 2026 episode of 12:01: The Death Penalty in Context, DPI’s Executive Director Robin M. Maher speaks with Samuel Spital, Associate Director Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF). To mark the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court's decision in Gregg v. Georgia, they explore the history of the landmark case, the pivotal role played by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in the litigation, and the enduring legacy of legendary LDF attorney Anthony Amsterdam. They conclude their conversation by looking back on the results of that 1976 decision.
In the May 2026 episode of 12:01 The Death Penalty in Context, DPI Managing Director Anne Holsinger speaks with Dr. Naomi Yavneh Klos, Dean of the Honors College at the University of New Mexico, and a prominent scholar of the Holocaust. Dr. Yavneh Klos is a founding member of the Jews Against Gassing Coalition, a New-Orleans area group formed to oppose the use of nitrogen gas as a method of execution in Louisiana. She joins DPI’s podcast during Jewish American Heritage Month to discuss the historical ties between lethal gas executions and the use of gas as a tool of genocide during the Holocau
In the April 2026 episode of 12:01: The Death Penalty in Context, DPI Managing Director Anne Holsinger speaks with Sherrerd Hartness, a writer and speaker who advocates for victims’ families and co-victims of murder. In 1977, Ms. Hartness’s sister, Carlotta, was killed—an experience that shaped her understanding of the long-term emotional impact of violent crime on families and communities. Her work now focuses on raising awareness about the needs of co-victims and the emotional challenges they face in the aftermath of loss.
In the March 2026 episode of 12:01: The Death Penalty in Context, DPI Managing Director Anne Holsinger speaks with Elizabeth Vartkessian (pictured), the executive director of Advancing Real Change (ARC), a national non-profit that works to provide mitigation investigation services and training that ensure the full life histories of individuals facing extreme sentences are presented to judges and juries. Ms. Vartkessian is a mitigation specialist who has spent decades investigating the lives and backgrounds of individuals facing the death penalty in order to present mitigating evidence to jurie
Taylor Bonner and Furonda Brasfield speak with DPI Managing Director Anne Holsinger about the racial history of the death penalty and how current data and narratives about racial justice play a role in advocacy on the death penalty. As the Death Penalty Information Center’s Racial Justice Storyteller, Ms. Bonner blends data and history to tell the story of the death penalty throughout the U.S. Ms. Brasfield is the Director of Leadership Development at the U.S. Campaign to End the Death Penalty; in that role, she supports leaders in the death penalty movement across the country and leads the No
In the January 2026 episode of 12:01: The Death Penalty in Context, DPI Managing Director Anne Holsinger speaks with Aramis Ayala, Executive Director of Fair and Just Prosecution. Ms. Ayala made history in 2016 as Florida’s first Black state attorney and later became the first Black woman in Florida to be nominated for state attorney general by a major party. In the podcast, she discusses her decision to not seek the death penalty, the reaction to her decision, and the evolving role of prosecutors in the capital punishment system.
In the November 2025 episode of 12:01: The Death Penalty in Context, DPI’s Managing Director Anne Holsinger speaks with Captain Art Cody, Dr. Steven Xenakis, and DPI Staff Attorney Leah Roemer about DPI’s new report, Forgotten Service, Lasting Wounds: Military Veterans and the Death Penalty. Their conversation covers the legal and scientific reasons behind the overrepresentation of veterans on death row. Captain Cody, a retired U.S. Naval officer, currently serves as Director of the Center for Veteran Criminal Advocacy. Dr. Xenakis, a retired U.S. Army Brigadier General and psychiatrist, works
In October 2025’s episode of 12:01: The Death Penalty in Context, DPI managing director Anne Holsinger interviews Maha Jweied. Ms. Jweied, the CEO of The Responsible Business Initiative for Justice (RBIJ), is an internationally recognized expert on the role of the private sector in justice systems and an advocate for improved access to justice worldwide. During the podcast, Ms. Jweied describes RBIJ’s mission of working with business leaders to push for criminal justice reform. Along with death penalty abolition, RBIJ advocates for policies addressing challenges facing formerly incarcerated in
In the September 2025 episode of 12:01: The Death Penalty in Context, DPI’s managing director Anne Holsinger interviews Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS) expert Katherine Judson. Ms. Judson is Executive Director of the Center for Integrity in Forensic Sciences and former Shaken Baby Syndrome/Abusive Head Trauma Litigation Coordinator for the Wisconsin Innocence Project. In the episode, Ms. Judson provides the history behind Shaken Baby Syndrome, and why it is now known by experts as “junk science.” She also explains how SBS was tragically used as forensic evidence to secure the capital conviction of
In the August 2025 episode of 12:01: The Death Penalty in Context, DPI Managing Director Anne Holsinger speaks with Melanie Kalmanson, a Florida attorney and author of the Substack newsletter Tracking Florida’s Death Penalty. Ms. Kalmanson’s newsletter compiles data on legislation, capital trials, death sentences, and executions in Florida. In the podcast, she discusses how she started following those developments, key events in the recent history of Florida’s death penalty, and why Florida has seen a significant increase in executions this year, even as new death sentences remain low.
In this month’s podcast episode of 12:01 The Death Penalty in Context, DPI’s Managing Director Anne Holsinger speaks with Sam Levin, a correspondent with The Guardian who covers criminal justice and the legal system, and Jimmy Jenkins, a criminal justice reporter for The Arizona Republic, about the challenges they encounter when reporting on the increasing secretive use of the death penalty. Mr. Jenkins has witnessed executions in Arizona and Mr. Levin has recently investigated South Carolina's return to executions after a 13-year pause.
In this month’s podcast episode of 12:01 The Death Penalty in Context, DPI’s Managing Director Anne Holsinger speaks with Corinna Barrett Lain, the S.D. Roberts & Sandra Moore Professor of Law at the University of Richmond School of Law and author of the recently published book, Secrets of the Killing State: The Untold Story of Lethal Injection. Ms. Lain’s new book challenges a widely held assumption that lethal injection is a painless, regulated, and medically-sound process.
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, collaborated on a 2023 study which discusses the legal context and rationale of the Court’s decision in Roper when it barred the death p
In this month’s podcast episode of 12:01 The Death Penalty in Context, DPI’s Managing Director Anne Holsinger speaks with Sabrina Butler-Smith (pictured), who was wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death at age 17 for causing the death of her nine-month-old son. After two years and nine months on death row, Ms. Butler-Smith’s conviction was overturned. At a second trial, it was determined that her son died from a serious medical condition, polycystic kidney disease, and she was acquitted. Since her exoneration, Ms. Butler-Smith has become an advocate against wrongful convictions and works w
Here’s the description for today’s podcast: 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 how the RJA has affected the work of OSPD. Avi Frey, a lawyer at the ACLU of N
In this month’s episode of 12:01: The Death Penalty in Context, Managing Director Anne Holsinger speaks with DPI Communications Associate Hayley Bedard, about The Death Penalty in 2024, which highlights trends and events related to the death penalty. 2024 marked the tenth consecutive year during which fewer than 30 people were executed (25) and fewer than 50 people were sentenced to death (26), while high profile cases of death-sentenced people attracted significant media attention and new, unexpected supporters. Per the report’s findings, just four states (Alabama, Texas, Missouri, and Oklaho
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 Jefferson County Circuit Court requesting a new hearing, the latest in a series of appeals. “I realized that this is such a protr
In this month’s episode of Discussions with DPIC, Executive Director Robin Maher speaks with Steve Vladeck, a Georgetown law professor and expert on the Supreme Court. Professor Vladeck is the author of The Shadow Docket: How the Supreme Court Uses Stealth Rulings to Amass Power and Undermine the Republic, released in 2023, as well as the weekly newsletter One First, which breaks down the Court’s rulings and history. Professor Vladeck explains why the Court’s treatment of death penalty cases has recently changed, the role the Court played in creating many of the problems with death penalty cas
Rereleased for September 2024: In the March 2021 edition of Discussions with DPIC, Death Penalty Information Center Senior Director of Research and Special Projects Ngozi Ndulue is joined by Carine Williams — the Chief Program Strategy Officer at the Innocence Project — for a conversation about innocence, the death penalty, and “the function of freedom.” Reflecting on the gross miscarriage of justice exhibited in wrongful convictions and exonerations, Williams stresses two critical themes: death is irrevocable and ending the death penalty is simply not enough.
In this month’s episode of Discussions with DPIC, Managing Director Anne Holsinger speaks with Leah Roemer, DPIC’s Legal Fellow and a primary author of our recent report, Lethal Election: How the U.S. Electoral Process Increases the Arbitrariness of the Death Penalty. Leah graduated from Berkeley Law in 2023, where she participated in the Death Penalty Clinic and earned a certificate in Public Interest and Social Justice. Leah discusses how some judges, prosecutors, and politicians alter their behavior in capital cases while running for office, creating unpredictability and inconsistent outcom
In this month’s episode of Discussions with DPIC, Managing Director Anne Holsinger speaks with Jessica Sutton, principal attorney with Phillips Black, a nonprofit public interest law firm focused capital defense. Ms. Sutton has represented clients facing the death penalty in more than a dozen jurisdictions across the U.S. and at all stages of proceedings. In recognition of Pride month, Ms. Sutton discusses the unique challenges LGBTQ+ people face in the capital punishment system and strategies defense teams can use to acknowledge and address these challenges.
In this month’s episode of Discussions with DPIC, Managing Director Anne Holsinger speaks with Lamont Hunter, a former Ohio death-sentenced prisoner who was wrongfully convicted of causing the death of his three-year-old son. After nearly 18 years of incarceration, Mr. Hunter was released from Ohio’s death row on June 15, 2023, after pleading guilty to lesser charges in exchange for his freedom. Since his release, Mr. Hunter has spoken widely about his experience with the criminal legal system and the dangers of wrongful convictions.
In this month’s episode of Discussions with DPIC, Managing Director Anne Holsinger speaks with Elisabeth Semel, Clinical Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley. Professor Semel joined Berkeley Law in 2001 as the first director of the school’s death penalty clinic and remains the clinic’s co-director, where students have represented individuals facing capital punishment and written amicus briefs in death penalty cases before the United States Supreme Court. In recognition of 38th year anniversary of the landmark US Supreme Court ruling in Batson v. Kentucky (1986), Professor
In this month’s episode of Discussions with DPIC, Managing Director Anne Holsinger speaks with Judge Elsa Alcala, who served on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals from 2011 to 2018. In addition to serving as a judge at the appeals and trial level, she worked as a prosecutor, criminal defense attorney, and most recently as a justice-reform lobbyist during her three-decade career in criminal law. She shares how these experiences have informed her perspective on the death penalty and identifies recommendations for criminal legal reforms.
