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: 2211 — 2220
Jun 01, 2018
ANALYSIS: Research Supports Assertion that U.S. Death Penalty “Devalues Black Lives”
The Movement for Black Lives has called for abolishing the death penalty in the United States, asserting that capital punishment is a racist legacy of slavery, lynching, and Jim Crow that “devalues Black lives.” A Spring 2018 article in the University of Chicago’s philosophy journal Ethics, co-authored by Michael Cholbi, Professor of Philosophy at California State Polytechnic University and Alex Madva, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Cal Poly Pomona, examines the philosophical…
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Jun 01, 2018
Federal Judge Orders Alabama to Disclose Execution Records
A federal district court has ordered the Alabama Department of Corrections to release its lethal-injection protocol and unseal transcripts and pleadings related to the failed execution of Doyle Hamm. In a May 30, 2018, order, Judge Karon Owen Bowdre, Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama said “how Alabama carries out its executions” is “a matter of great public concern,” and ruled that the public’s “common law right of access to the sealed records…
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May 30, 2018
With Drugs Expiring and Lawsuits Pending, Nebraska Prosecutors Seek to Expedite Execution
Facing an August 2018 expiration date for two of the drugs in Nebraska’s experimental execution protocol, state Attorney General Douglas Peterson (pictured) has asked the Nebraska Supreme Court to expedite consideration of the prosecutor’s request to set a July execution date for condemned prisoner Carey Dean Moore. The attorney general has petitioned the court to schedule Moore’s execution for July 10 “or alternatively for a date in mid-July,” despite the pendency of several lawsuits, which…
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May 29, 2018
New Podcast: Columnist Nicholas Kristof on “The Framing of Kevin Cooper”
In his May 20 column in the Sunday New York Times, Pulitzer Prize winning columnist Nicholas Kristof (pictured, left) focused national attention on the troubling case of California death-row prisoner, Kevin Cooper (pictured, right) and the disturbing evidence suggesting that San Bernardino police planted blood and other evidence to frame him for murder. Kristof joined DPIC Executive Director Robert Dunham for a Discussions with DPIC podcast to talk about his recent column, Was Kevin Cooper…
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May 25, 2018
Courts in Indiana and Idaho Grapple With Challenges to Execution Secrecy
Courts in Idaho and Indiana are grappling with how to respond to legal challenges to lethal-injection secrecy laws after corrections officials in both states refused to release execution information requested under state public records laws. In both states, officials refused to provide details about execution drugs and their sources, saying that state law insulates the information from public disclosure. In Idaho, Judge Lynn Norton ordered the Department of Corrections to release information…
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May 24, 2018
Supreme Court to Review Native American’s Conviction and Death Sentence for Murder on Indian Lands
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to review a federal appeals court decision vacating the conviction of Patrick Dwayne Murphy (pictured), a Native-American prisoner sentenced to death in Oklahoma state court for a murder he argues could only be prosecuted by the federal government. On May 21, 2018, the Court granted Oklahoma’s petition to review an August 2017 decision by the U.S Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit ruling that Murphy — a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation — should not have…
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May 23, 2018
STUDY: Pervasive Rubberstamping by State Courts Undermines Legitimacy of Harris County, Texas Death Sentences
State-court factfinding by judges in Harris County, Texas death-penalty cases is “a sham” that “rubberstamps” the views of county prosecutors, according to a study of the county’s capital post-conviction proceedings published in the May 2018 issue of the Houston Law Review. In The Problem of Rubber Stamping in State Capital Habeas Proceedings: A Harris County Case Study, researchers from the University of Texas School of Law Capital Punishment Center examined factfinding orders in 191 Harris…
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May 22, 2018
Former Louisiana Death-Row Prisoner Released on Plea Agreement, Amid Evidence of Innocence, Misconduct
More than twenty years after being convicted and sentenced to death for a murder he has long said he did not commit, Corey Williams (pictured, center, with his defense team) walked free from prison in Louisiana on May 22, 2018. The deal was bittersweet for Williams, for despite the evidence of innocence, he had to agree to plead guilty to lesser charges of manslaughter and obstruction of justice to obtain his freedom. In a statement released to the media, Amir Ali (pictured, left), Williams’…
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May 21, 2018
Texas Legislators Ask Why Intellectually Disabled Bobby James Moore is Still on Death Row
In March 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals had employed an unscientific and unconstitutionally harsh standard in rejecting Bobby James Moore’s claim that he is ineligible for the death penalty because of intellectual disability. Despite a subsequent concession by Harris County prosecutors in November 2017 that Moore (pictured) qualifies as intellectually disabled under all accepted medical definitions, the state court has still not ruled on Moore’s…
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May 18, 2018
New York Times Columnist Says Kevin Cooper May Have Been Framed, Urges DNA Testing That Could Prove His Innocence
Citing extensive evidence that California death-row prisoner Kevin Cooper (pictured) may have been framed, New York Times Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Nicholas Kristof has urged Governor Jerry Brown to permit advanced DNA testing of evidence that could potentially prove Cooper’s innocence. In a column electronically posted by the Times on May 17, 2018 and scheduled to appear in the paper’s May 20 Sunday print edition, Kristof joins a former FBI agent, the American Bar Association, and Judge…
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