Publications & Testimony
Testimony and Statements on the Death Penalty
FROM DPIC
For testimony by former Executive Director Robert Dunham and former Executive Director Richard C. Dieter, please visit our page DPIC Testimony.
FROM RELIGIOUS LEADERS AND ORGANIZATIONS
- News Brief: Pope Francis Calls for Prayer to Abolish the Death Penalty (September 1, 2022)
- Jewish Congregation Renews Request for Department of Justice to Drop Death Penalty in Tree of Life Synagogue Killings (June 24, 2021)
- Orthodox Church Patriarch Calls Death Penalty Incompatible with Christian Beliefs (October 20, 2020)
- Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) — Statement on the Federal Death Penalty (August 5, 2019)
- Louisiana Christian Faith Leaders Call for State to Abolish Death Penalty (April 25, 2019)
- Pittsburgh Rabbi’s Wife Opposes Death Penalty for Tree of Life Synagogue Killings (March 18, 2019)
- Orthodox Jewish Organization Calls for an End to Capital Punishment in the U.S. | Death Penalty Information Center (February 17, 2016)
- Baptist Theologian Says Death Penalty Does Not Fit With Christian Theology (March 8, 2016)
- Civil and Human Rights: Death Penalty — Church & Society, The United Methodist Church
- Religious Views: Over 150 Catholic Theologians Call for Repeal of the Death Penalty (September 27, 2011)
- Power Over Life and Death — The Power to Save a Life (January 15, 2005)
- Responsibility, Rehabilitation, and Restoration: A Catholic Perspective on Crime and Criminal Justice (November 2000)
- The Challenge of Holiness: A Sermon on the Death Penalty (January 10, 2000)
- General Assembly of the Texas Conference of Churches — Resolution Opposing the Death Penalty (February 24, 1998)
- Statement by Catholic Bishops of Texas on Capital Punishment (October 20, 1997)
- Catholic Church Expresses Strong Opposition to Capital Punishment in Catechism (September 9, 1997)
- Catholic Bishops of Iowa Issue Statement on Death Penalty (February 4, 1998)
- To End the Death Penalty: A Report of the National Jewish/Catholic Consultation
- Transcript of Dr. Pat Robertson’s Speech on the Role of Religion and the Death Penalty at The College of William and Mary
- Collection of Official Catholic Statements on the Death Penalty (1980)
FROM THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY
- UN experts call for universal abolition of the death penalty | OHCHR (October 9, 2023)
- Zambia Becomes 25th Sub-Saharan African Nation to Abolish Death Penalty (December 23, 2022)
- Belgium Wants a World Without the Death Penalty (October 20, 2022)
- As France Prepares to Assume Presidency of European Union, Emmanuel Macron Announces Initiative for Worldwide Abolition of Death Penalty (October 11, 2021)
- U.N. Secretary-General, European Union Ambassador Call for Abolition of “Barbaric” Death Penalty (October 11, 2017)
- European Union Calls for Abolition of Capital Punishment as World Coalition Hosts International Death Penalty Conference (June 27, 2017)
- U.N. Investigator Talks About the Future of Solitary and the Death Penalty (November 7, 2016)
- World Congress Against the Death Penalty Renews Call for Global Moratorium, Pope Sends Message of Support (June 27, 2016)
- Declaration by the Presidency on behalf of the European Union on the 400th execution in Texas from the Council of the European Union (August 21, 2007)
- Resolution Supporting Worldwide Moratorium on Executions from the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (April 1999)
- Mary Robinson, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights — Message to the Press Conference organized by the Death Penalty Information Center for the release of the report, “International Perspectives on the Death Penalty” (October 12, 1999)
- Status of the International Covenants on Human Rights from the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (April 1998)
FROM ADVOCACY GROUPS
- Advocacy Group Tells Supreme Court that Negative Stereotypes Distort Perception that Latinos in Death-Penalty Cases Pose Future Danger to Society (April 15, 2022)
- Disability Rights Groups, Legal Experts, and Conservative Advocates Urge Supreme Court to Strike Down Georgia’s Uniquely Harsh Proof Requirements in Death-Penalty Intellectual Disabilities Cases (January 11, 2022)
- NAACP Reaffirms Its Support of Abolishing the Death Penalty (2022)
- More Than 80 Civil Rights and Advocacy Organizations Urge President Biden to End Federal Executions | Death Penalty Information Center (February 9, 2021)
- More Than 250 Conservative Leaders Join Call to End Death Penalty (October 29, 2019)
- National Alliance on Mental Illness: The Death Penalty
- Florida League of Women Voters Calls for Halt to Executions (May 28, 2007)
- Victims Organizations Issue Joint Statement for National Victims’ Rights Week (April 19, 2007)
FROM JUDGES, LEGISLATORS, AND OTHER ORGANIZATIONS
- Republican-led Oklahoma committee considers pause on executions amid death case scrutiny (October 5, 2023)
- Former Pro-Death Penalty District Attorney Explains Why He Now Supports Abolition, and Fears Political Promises to Expand the Use of the Death Penalty (August 20, 2023)
- Pressley, Durbin Reintroduce Bill to End the Federal Death Penalty (July 13, 2023)
- The Lancet Editorial: Physician Involvement in Executions Violates Medical Ethics | Death Penalty Information Center (May 20, 2023)
- APA calls for extending ineligibility for the death penalty to adolescent offenders younger than age 21 (August 4, 2022)
- Why some Republicans are turning against the death penalty | Ron Ferguson | Ohio House of Representatives (March 8, 2022)
- Eight years on Texas’ highest criminal court turned Elsa Alcala into a death penalty skeptic. How will the court change without her? (January 26, 2019)
- AMA to Supreme Court: Doctor participation in executions unethical (August 22, 2018)
- Former Governor Bill Richardson: Death Penalty Is Bad for Business, Out of Step With World’s Views (June 16, 2017)
- Capital Punishment and Nurses’ Participation in Capital Punishment (2016)
- Former Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro Says Death Penalty Unfixable, “Not Worth It Any More” (September 12, 2016)
- Resolution Supporting Repeal of the Death Penalty, National Hispanic Caucus of State Legislators (August 11, 2016)
- Retired Police Captain Says Repealing Death Penalty Is “Smart on Crime” (November 24, 2014)
- Resolution Supporting Abolition of the Death Penalty, Natl. Assoc. of Black Psychologists (2012)
- The Road to Justice and Peace by New Jersey State Senator Raymond Lesniak (February 1, 2009)
- Statement On The Federal Death Penalty System by Senator Feingold (June 7, 2001)
- Statement on the Need for a Federal Moratorium on the Death Penalty Senator Feingold (October 29, 2000)
- Death Penalty: The Torah and Today (August 23, 2000)
- Press Release for Senator Russ Feingold’s Introduction of Senate’s First Death Penalty Moratorium Bill (April 20, 2000)
- Amnesty International Southern Regional Conference: Orlando, Florida Remarks by Former Florida Chief Justice Gerald Kogan (October 23, 1999)
- American Bar Association Resolution on the Death Penalty (February 3, 1997)
FROM MURDER VICTIMS’ FAMILY MEMBERS
Items: 1411 — 1420
Dec 28, 2020
District Court Voids Lisa Montgomery Execution Date; Federal Prosecutors Appeal
Saying the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) acted unlawfully in resetting Lisa Montgomery’s execution for January 12, 2021, a federal judge in Washington has for a second time blocked efforts by the U.S. Department of Justice to put to death the only woman on federal death row. In an order issued late in the day on December 24, 2020, U.S. District Court Judge Randolph D. Moss agreed with Montgomery’s lawyers that the BOP lacked legal authority to reschedule Montgomery’s execution while a…
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Dec 23, 2020
COVID-19’s Impact on Death-Row Population Reflected in Fall 2020 Death Row USA Report
Fueled by at least 16 COVID-19 deaths and a record-low number of new death sentences caused by the cancelation or postponement of capital trials, the population of U.S. death row dipped 3.4% in the year spanning October 2019 through September 2020, according to the latest quarterly death-row census by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF). The Death Penalty Information Center’s analysis of the Fall 2020 edition of LDF’s Death Row USA — released in mid-December 2020 — found that 86…
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Dec 22, 2020
Texas Supreme Court Orders Compensation for Death-Row Exoneree Alfred Dewayne Brown
The Texas Supreme Court has unanimously ruled that the state’s comptroller had no authority to deny death-row exoneree Alfred Dewayne Brown’s application for compensation after a trial court had declared him “actually innocent.” The court ruled on December 18, 2020 that Texas law entitled Brown to compensation for the twelve years he was imprisoned after being wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death for the murders of a store clerk and a Houston police officer. Brown spent nine years on…
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Dec 21, 2020
Federal Prisoners Facing Execution Contract COVID-19 in Outbreak Spread by Prior Executions
Two men scheduled for execution by the federal government in January 2021 are among the federal death-row prisoners who have tested positive for COVID-19 at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana. Lawyers for Corey Johnson (pictured, left) and Dustin Higgs (pictured, below), announced that they had been notified by the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) that their clients had contracted the coronavirus, amidst an outbreak of the disease at the prison in the wake of the federal…
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Dec 21, 2020
Capital Case Roundup — Death Penalty Court Decisions the Week of December 14, 2020
NEWS (12/18/20) — Texas: The Texas Supreme Court has overturned a ruling by the state’s comptroller that had denied death-row exoneree Alfred Dewayne Brown’s application for compensation and directed the comptroller to pay Brown the compensation mandated by state law. Brown was wrongly convicted and sentenced to death in 2005. Following his exoneration, he applied for compensation under Texas’ Tim Cole Act, but his application was denied because he had not been adjudicated “actually innocent”…
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Dec 18, 2020
Human Rights Tribunal Calls for Stay of Execution for Lisa Montgomery
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), the human rights body charged with overseeing Western Hemisphere nations’ compliance with human rights obligations, has called on the United States to halt the scheduled January 12, 2021 execution of Lisa Montgomery. Citing Montgomery’s history of extreme trauma and mental illness and the irreversibility of execution, the IACHR ruled on December 1, 2020, that Montgomery had presented serious claims that her execution and her current…
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Dec 17, 2020
Former Pennsylvania Death-Row Prisoner Roderick Johnson is Freed After ‘Egregious’ Prosecutorial Misconduct Bars Retrial
A former Pennsylvania death-row prisoner has been freed, one month after the trial court barred his retrial because of “egregious” prosecutorial misconduct by the county district attorney. On December 1, 2020, Berks County Court of Common Pleas Judge Eleni Dimitriou Geishauser formally dismissed all charges against Roderick Johnson in the 1996 double-murder of cousins Damon and Gregory Banks in Reading, Pennsylvania and issued an order discharging him from custody. Johnson was freed after the…
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Dec 16, 2020
DPIC 2020 Year End Report: Death Penalty Hits Historic Lows Despite Federal Execution Spree
Death sentences reached their lowest level in the modern era and executions hit a generational low despite an historically anomalous federal execution spree, according to the 2020 Year End Report from the Death Penalty Information Center. As the nation grappled with a deadly pandemic and experienced a reawakening on racial justice, most states put trials and executions on hold. At the same time, ignoring public health warnings and bucking national trends, the federal government carried out ten…
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Dec 15, 2020
Ohio Governor Mike DeWine Calls Lethal Injection A Practical Impossibility, Says State Will Not Execute Anyone in 2021
Saying that “[l]ethal injection appears to us to be impossible from a practical point of view today,” Ohio Governor Mike DeWine (pictured) told reporters it is “pretty clear” that the state will not execute anyone in 2021. In a December 8, 2020 year-end interview with Associated Press, DeWine said the state has an “unofficial moratorium” on the death penalty as a result of its inability to procure lethal injection execution drugs and that legislators would have to choose a different method of…
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Dec 14, 2020
New Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón Implements Sweeping Changes in Death Penalty Policy
Just hours after taking office, newly elected Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón issued a series of sweeping changes that ended new death-penalty prosecutions and moved towards reconsidering existing death sentences in the county with the nation’s largest death row. The policy changes signaled the potential nationwide impact of local prosecutor elections in 2020, as new reform prosecutors prepare to take the helm in counties that constitute more than 11% of the country’s total death…
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