Updated 3/2/2022
JOINT STATEMENT FROM ELECTED PROSECUTORS PLEDGING TO WORK
TOWARDS THE ELIMINATION OF THE DEATH PENALTY
February 2022
We are a bipartisan group of elected prosecutors representing communities across every region of
the country. We come from large cities as well as small rural communities and we bring to our
elected positions a wide range of backgrounds and decades of experience in the field of
prosecution. We share a joint vision for a more fair, just, and accountable criminal legal system.
Many of us have been on the frontlines of the effort to reform the American death penalty.
Others have witnessed — and in some cases been directly involved in — prosecutorial efforts to
seek capital punishment. Although we hold varied opinions surrounding the death penalty and
hail from jurisdictions with different starting points on the propriety of this sentence, we have all
now arrived at the same inexorable conclusion: our country’s system of capital punishment is
broken. It is time to work together toward systemic changes that will bring about the elimination
of the death penalty nationwide.
The United States was one of only 18 countries, the only Western democracy, and the only
country in the Americas to use the death penalty in 2020. Not only do we continue to separate
1
ourselves from our peer nations by imposing the death penalty, but we do so in a way that is —
on a national scale — arbitrary and capricious. Today, we have a capital punishment system that
costs taxpayers over $1 million per death sentence, runs counter to our constitutional ban against
cruel and unusual punishment and guarantees of due process and equal protection, fails as an
effective deterrent, and does not reduce crime.
2
Based on these and other concerns, 23 states to date have abolished the death penalty outright,
while decades of Supreme Court precedent have limited its use. However, even as use of the
death penalty continues to wane, far too many cases offer troubling examples of its application in
situations that should concern us all. We stand together in urging all prosecutive leaders to, at a
minimum, refuse to seek death sentences against individuals with cognitive impairments or
otherwise diminished culpability, and to work to remedy past cases that resulted in unjust capital
sentences.
2
Torin McFarland, The death penalty vs. life incarceration: A financial analysis Susquehanna University Political
Review (2016), scholarlycommons.susqu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1026&context=supr (calculated in
2015 dollars) (other studies have calculated costs in some states to be significantly higher; see the Death Penalty
Information Center’s Facts About the Death Penalty for an overview of additional research at
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/urls_cited/ot2016/16-5247/16-5247-2.pdf); Michael Radelet & Traci
Lacock, Do Executions Lower Homicide Rates: The Views of Leading Criminologists (2009),
https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=7323&context=jclc.
1
Death sentences and executions 2020, Amnesty International (2021),
amnesty.org/en/documents/act50/3760/2021/en/.
When the Supreme Court revived the death penalty in 1976, it did so on the premise that it would
affect only the so-called “worst of the worst” — people who “commit a narrow category of the
most serious crimes” and demonstrate “extreme culpability.” Yet today, nearly 50 years and
3
countless reform efforts later, the death penalty still targets not the worst of the worst, but rather
the unluckiest of the unluckiest: people who endured sexual abuse and other unspeakable trauma
as children; people with long histories of severe mental illness or traumatic brain injuries,
including people struggling with PTSD after serving in the military; people who committed
crimes during a psychotic break they can’t even remember; people who, because of incomplete
cognitive development or other intellectual disability, have never been able to fully function as
adults; people with trial lawyers so derelict in their duties and obligations that they never
bothered to uncover long histories of illness and trauma. This, tragically, is the profile of death
row in America.
We have also seen that racial biases are embedded deep within our system of capital punishment.
People of color have accounted for a disproportionate 44% of executions in the United States
since 1976 and 58% of defendants currently awaiting execution are people of color. Black
4
defendants accused of crimes against white victims are far more likely to receive the death
penalty than other groups. Strikingly, while about 76% of all death penalty cases involve white
5
victims, only one-half of all murder victims are white.
6
The U.S.’s acceptance of capital punishment is particularly unconscionable given that we know
our system too often convicts innocent people. At least 186 people on death row have been
exonerated over the last half-century; for every nine people who have been executed since 1976,
at least one condemned person has been exonerated. While we will never know how many
7
innocent people we have executed, the National Academy of Sciences estimates that over 4% of
current death row prisoners are innocent. And, even in cases that do not lead to a death sentence,
8
the mere prospect of capital punishment can corrupt and corrode the workings of the justice
system, compelling innocent people to plead guilty and witnesses to deliver false testimony. In
fact, the use or threat of the death penalty was a factor in more than 13% of exonerations across
the U.S. in 2019.
9
9
DPIC analysis: Use or threat of death penalty implicated in 19 exoneration cases in 2019, Death Penalty
Information Center (2020),
deathpenaltyinfo.org/facts-and-research/dpic-reports/dpic-special-reports/dpic-analysis-2019-exoneration-report-imp
licates-use-or-threat-of-death-penalty-in-19-wrongful-convictions.
8
S.R. Gross et al., Rate of false conviction of criminal defendants who are sentenced to death, 111 Proceedings of
the National Academy of Sciences 7230–7235 (2014), pnas.org/content/111/20/7230.
7
Executions by state and region since 1976, Death Penalty Information Center,
deathpenaltyinfo.org/executions/executions-overview/number-of-executions-by-state-and-region-since-1976;
Innocence, Death Penalty Information Center (2021), deathpenaltyinfo.org/policy-issues/innocence.
6
Id.
5
ACLU, Race and the Death Penalty, aclu.org/other/race-and-death-penalty.
4
Death Penalty Information Center, Executions by Race and Race of Victim,
deathpenaltyinfo.org/executions/executions-overview/executions-by-race-and-race-of-victim; Death Penalty
Information Center, Current U.S. Death Row Population by Race,
deathpenaltyinfo.org/death-row/overview/demographics.
3
Gregg v. Georgia, Oyez, oyez.org/cases/1975/74-6257; Kansas v. Marsh, Oyez, oyez.org/cases/2005/04-1170;
Roper v. Simmons, Justia, supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/543/551/.
We are duty-bound to counter these egregious injustices and we pledge to use our power as
prosecutors, whenever and however it may be appropriate, to do so. For those of us in states
where the death penalty is still permitted, we will uphold Supreme Court precedent and the
interests of justice by refusing to seek the death penalty against people with intellectual
disabilities, post-traumatic stress disorder, histories of traumatic brain injury, or other intellectual
or cognitive challenges that diminish their ability to fully understand and regulate their own
actions. We will support efforts to identify individuals currently on death row in our jurisdictions
who experienced these challenges and to seek commutations or other just resolutions. We will
also support efforts to overturn existing death sentences in cases that feature a colorable claim of
innocence, racial bias, egregiously inadequate or negligent defense counsel, discovery violations,
or other misconduct that render us unable to stand by the sentence in good faith. This is the bare
minimum that justice demands of us.
As elected prosecutors, we serve as ministers of justice and are obligated to seek outcomes that
advance equity, fairness, community safety, and the rule of law. And we are also obligated to
reject arbitrariness, racism, and cruelty. We pledge to abide by these obligations by refusing to
seek the death penalty against individuals with cognitive impairments or otherwise diminished
culpability. And we further commit to work toward the elimination of our nation’s failed death
penalty system, once and for all.
Respectfully,
Wesley Bell
Prosecuting Attorney, St. Louis County, Missouri
Buta Biberaj
Commonwealth’s Attorney, Loudoun County, Virginia
Chesa Boudin
District Attorney, City and County of San Francisco, California
Aisha Braveboy
State’s Attorney, Prince George’s County, Maryland
John Choi
County Attorney, Ramsey County (St. Paul), Minnesota
Laura Conover
County Attorney, Pima County (Tucson), Arizona
Dave Clegg
District Attorney, Ulster County, New York
John Creuzot
District Attorney, Dallas County, Texas
Satana Deberry
District Attorney, Durham County, North Carolina
Parisa Dehghani-Tafti
Commonwealth’s Attorney, Arlington County and the City of Falls Church, Virginia
Steve Descano
Commonwealth’s Attorney, Fairfax County, Virginia
Thomas J. Donovan Jr.
Attorney General, Vermont
Michael Dougherty
District Attorney, 20
th
Judicial District (Boulder), Colorado
Mark Dupree
District Attorney, Wyandotte County (Kansas City), Kansas
Matt Ellis
District Attorney, Wasco County, Oregon
Keith Ellison
Attorney General, Minnesota
Ramin Fatehi
Commonwealth’s Attorney, City of Norfolk, Virginia
Kimberly M. Foxx
State’s Attorney, Cook County (Chicago), Illinois
José Garza
District Attorney, Travis County (Austin), Texas
George Gascón
District Attorney, Los Angeles County, California
Sarah F. George
State’s Attorney, Chittenden County (Burlington), Vermont
Sim Gill
District Attorney, Salt Lake County, Utah
Deborah Gonzalez
District Attorney, Western Judicial Circuit (Athens), Georgia
Eric Gonzalez
District Attorney, Kings County (Brooklyn), New York
Mark Gonzalez
District Attorney, Nueces County (Corpus Christi), Texas
Christian Gossett
District Attorney, Winnebago County, Wisconsin
Andrea Harrington
District Attorney, Berkshire County, Massachusetts
Jim Hingeley
Commonwealth’s Attorney, Albemarle County, Virginia
John Hummel
District Attorney, Deschutes County, Oregon
Elizabeth K. Humphries
Commonwealth’s Attorney, Fredericksburg, Virginia
Natasha Irving
District Attorney, 6
th
Prosecutorial District, Maine
Kathy Jennings
Attorney General, Delaware
Melinda Katz
District Attorney, Queens County, New York
Alexis King
District Attorney, 1
st
Judicial District, Colorado
Lawrence Krasner
District Attorney, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Rebecca Like
Acting Prosecuting Attorney, County of Kaua’i, Hawaii
Edward E. Manisuban
Attorney General, Northern Mariana Islands
Brian S. Mason
District Attorney, 17
th
Judicial District, Colorado
Beth McCann
District Attorney, 2
nd
Judicial District (Denver), Colorado
Stephanie Morales
Commonwealth’s Attorney, Portsmouth, Virginia
Jody Owens
District Attorney, Hinds County, Mississippi
Alonzo Payne
District Attorney, 12
th
Judicial District, Colorado
Joseph Platania
Commonwealth’s Attorney, City of Charlottesville, Virginia
Bryan Porter
Commonwealth’s Attorney, City of Alexandria, Virginia
Karl Racine
Attorney General, District of Columbia
Jeff Rosen
District Attorney, Santa Clara County, California
Marian Ryan
District Attorney, Middlesex County, Massachusetts
Dan Satterberg
Prosecuting Attorney, King County (Seattle), Washington
Eli Savit
Prosecuting Attorney, Washtenaw County (Ann Arbor), Michigan
Mike Schmidt
District Attorney, Multnomah County (Portland), Oregon
Carol Siemon
Prosecuting Attorney, Ingham County (Lansing), Michigan
David Sullivan
District Attorney, Northwestern District, Massachusetts
Shannon Taylor
Commonwealth’s Attorney, Henrico County, Virginia
Suzanne Valdez
District Attorney, Douglas County (Lawrence), Kansas
Matthew Van Houten
District Attorney, Tompkins County, New York
Andrew Warren
State Attorney, 13
th
Judicial Circuit (Tampa), Florida
Todd Williams
District Attorney, Buncombe County (Asheville), North Carolina
