12:01 The Death Penalty in Context

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 Robert Roberson in Texas.

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 penalty for juveniles under age 18. Ms. Roemer is a major contributor to DPI’s new report, Immature Minds in a “Maturing Society": Roper v. Simmons at 20.

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 with Witness to Innocence, an organization of death row exonerees, for death row exonerees.

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 Northern California, explains the potential systemic effects of the RJA, which are just beginning to take shape as the legislation approaches its fifth anniversary of passage.

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 Oklahoma) were responsible for more than three-quarters (76%) of executions in 2024.

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 protracted injustice with so many twists and turns over a quarter of a century. So many people have been exploited in the process that it really is a case that's emblematic of many terrible issues in our criminal justice system, and I felt like in order to capture all of that in its totality, I wanted to slow down and really unpack this case in a meaningful way,” explains Ms. Shelburne on why she decided to create the Earwitness podcast. She shares the challenges she and her team faced, including the “fading memories of people … [who] just couldn't remember the finite details that we felt were so crucial ... to pin down. Luckily, we were able to get our hands on quite a bit of source material through.”

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 cases it now complains about, and how the death penalty shaped the Court’s new orientation and approach to other areas of law.