I was arrested on Easter Sunday in 1999 while driving through the small town of Lemoore, California. I was held in a local county jail for seven years while fighting my case. In 2006, l was convicted of murders I did not commit, then was promptly hauled off to San Quentin’s notorious death row. Though I have never been a stranger to societal injustices, there’s something about being Black and having 12 non-Black jurors come back with a racially tinged verdict of “GUILTY” that just does something to you. At that moment, my fight to abolish the death penalty began.

My 25-year fight has encompassed publishing stories about capital punishment, sharing my story with the public and working toward my own freedom. After repeated bouts of disappointment and defeat, I sat and I sulked. I wondered if the death penalty’s inequitable pendulum would ever swing back toward the arc of abolition.

As we ended 2024, I felt a shift. On December 23, President Joe Biden commuted the sentences of 37 of the 40 individuals on federal death row to life without a possibility of parole. On December 31, North Carolina’s governor at the time, Roy Cooper, commuted the death sentences of 15 of the 136 people facing execution in his state.

But I’ve come to understand that criminal legal system reforms can shift as easily as wind. President Donald Trump has already signed a sweeping execution order that directs the attorney general to “take all necessary and lawful action” to ensure that states have enough lethal injection drugs to carry out executions.

This month, President Trump’s newly installed attorney general, Pamela Bondi, released memos to the Justice Department to lift the moratorium on federal executions, instruct federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty in certain cases, and assist local prosecutors in pursuing death sentences under state law against the 37 individuals who received commutations under........

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