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: 1641 — 1650
Apr 13, 2020
Capital Case Roundup — Death Penalty Court Decisions the Week of April 13, 2020
NEWS (4/17/20) — Nebraska: The Nebraska Supreme Court has upheld the conviction and death sentence of Patrick Schroeder in the killing of his cellmate at Tecumseh State Prison in 2017. Schroeder was serving a life sentence for murder at the time. Because of prison overcrowding, Schroeder and his cellmate had been housed together in a 10-by-12 foot solitary confinement cell. At trial, Schroeder waived his right to counsel, pled guilty without a plea agreement, waived a jury determination of…
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Apr 13, 2020
News Brief — Attorney General Declares Arizona a Habeas Corpus Opt-In State; Order to Be Appealed
NEWS (4/13/20) — Washington, D.C.: U.S. Attorney General William Barr has issued a regulatory order, retroactive to 1998, certifying the state of Arizona as an “opt-in” state under the federal habeas corpus statute. The opt-in provision of the habeas corpus law rewards states that are deemed to provide adequate state-court representation of death-row prisoners by shortening the time period for bringing federal challenges to capital convictions and death sentences from one year to six months and…
Read MoreApr 10, 2020
U.S. Supreme Court Declines to Review Texas Judicial Bigotry Case
The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to review the case of Jewish death-row prisoner Randy Halprin (pictured), who was tried and sentenced to death in Texas before a judge who made anti-Semitic and racist comments about Halprin and his co-defendants. The April 6, 2020 decision marked the second time in less than two months that the Court has declined to review a controversial Texas death-penalty case in the wake of stays of execution that left open the possibility of judicial review in the state…
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Apr 09, 2020
Victim’s Mother Joins Fight to Free “Likely Innocent” Death-Row Prisoner Walter Ogrod, Who Has Symptoms of Coronavirus
Saying she wanted justice for her murdered four-year-old daughter, not “a closed case with an innocent person in jail,” Sharon Fahy has joined with the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office and defense lawyers in the fight to immediately free Walter Ogrod (pictured) from Pennsylvania’s death row. On April 8, 2020, Fahy submitted an affidavit and a brief supporting the parties’ efforts to persuade Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas Judge Shelley Robins New to address uncontested innocence…
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Apr 09, 2020
News Brief — Federal Court Approves Settlement Ending Mandatory Solitary Confinement of Pennsylvania Death-Row Prisoners
NEWS (4/9/20) — Pennsylvania: A federal district court judge has approved a settlement of a class action challenge to the conditions of confinement on Pennsylvania’s death row that officially ends the state’s policy of mandatory incarceration of death-row prisoners in permanent solitary confinement. In a 14-page Memorandum and Order, Judge John E. Jones III of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania expressed “absolutely no hesitancy” in accepting the proposed…
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Apr 08, 2020
Nebraska Supreme Court Rejects Challenge to State’s Capital Sentencing Procedures
The Nebraska Supreme Court has upheld the state’s death penalty law against a claim that its death-sentencing procedure violates capital defendants’ Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial. In a decision issued on April 3, 2020, the court unanimously affirmed a trial court ruling dismissing death-row prisoner Jeffrey Hessler’s challenge to the state’s three-judge capital sentencing process. Under Nebraska law, if a defendant is convicted of capital murder, a jury determines whether aggravating…
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Apr 07, 2020
U.S. Court of Appeals Lifts Injunction on Federal Executions, Returns Case to Lower Court for Further Litigation
A badly divided federal court of appeals has lifted a court order that had prevented the federal government from resuming executions after a hiatus of more than 16 years. In a fractured ruling with three separate opinions and no rationale for its decision commanding a majority, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit voted 2 – 1 on April 7, 2020 to vacate the preliminary injunction that had blocked the federal government from carrying out four executions in…
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Apr 07, 2020
News Brief — Drugmakers Drop Lawsuit as Nevada Returns Unused Execution Drugs
NEWS (4/7/20) — Nevada: A trial-court judge in Las Vegas has dismissed a lawsuit filed by drugmakers against the Nevada prison system after state officials agreed to return unused drugs it had obtained under false pretenses in a failed attempt to execute Scott Dozier in 2018. Pharmaceutical companies Alvogen, Inc., Hikma Pharmaceuticals USA, and Sandoz Inc. reached a settlement with the state in which Nevada agreed to give back the drugs, which have expired, in exchange for a refund of their…
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Apr 06, 2020
Outlier Counties: Melvin Bonnell Seeks New Trial After Defense Discovers Evidence That Cuyahoga County Prosecutors Had Withheld for Decades
Ohio death-row prisoner Melvin Bonnell (pictured) has asked the Ohio Supreme Court to vacate his conviction and death sentence after his lawyers discovered physical evidence from his case that Cuyahoga County prosecutors had repeatedly insisted since the mid-1990s had been lost or destroyed. Bonnell was scheduled to be executed February 12, 2020, but received a reprieve in December 2019 because of what Governor Mike DeWine described as “ongoing problems” in obtaining execution drugs. Saying…
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Apr 06, 2020
News Brief — Fourth Texas Execution Put on Hold Because of Coronavirus Pandemic
NEWS (4/6/20) — Texas: A Texas trial court has rescheduled the execution of Billy Joe Wardlow from April 29, 2020 until July 8, 2020, the fourth execution in Texas that has been postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic. District Judge Angela Saucier granted a motion filed by the Morris County District Attorney’s office to reschedule the execution, rather than withdrawing the death warrant as a defense motion had requested. If the court had withdrawn the warrant, prosecutors would have been…
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