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: 2321 — 2330
Feb 01, 2018
Researcher: Racial Disparities Require Abolishing or Severely Restricting Death Penalty
Severely restricting the use of capital punishment or abolishing the death penalty altogether would help rectify some of the persistent racial disparities found in the United States’ criminal justice system, according to Cassia Spohn (pictured), the Foundation Professor of Criminology and Director of the School of Criminology & Criminal Justice at Arizona State University. In a chapter on Race and Sentencing Disparity in the recently released Academy for Justice four-volume study, Reforming…
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Jan 31, 2018
Alabama Prosecutors Join Motion to Resentence Death-Row Prisoner With 48 IQ to Life Without Parole
Alabama prosecutors have agreed that Renard Marcel Daniel (pictured) should be resentenced to life without parole, after the state’s mental health expert administered psychological tests to Daniel that showed the intellectually disabled man had an IQ of 48. Earlier in January, Daniel’s lawyers — with the consent of the Alabama Attorney General’s office — filed a motion in federal district court jointly asking the court to vacate Daniel’s death sentence and return his case to state court for him to…
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Jan 30, 2018
Colorado Supreme Court Overturns Prison-Murder Conviction, Says Prosecutors Withheld Evidence in Death-Penalty Case
The Colorado Supreme Court has upheld a trial court ruling overturning the first-degree murder conviction of David Bueno (pictured) after Arapahoe County prosecutors who sought the death penalty against him in a prison killing hid evidence that pointed to another suspect. The January 22 ruling comes in the wake of a trial court ruling that prosecutors in the state’s 18th Judicial District, which includes Arapahoe County, also suppressed more than twenty pieces of evidence that should have been…
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Jan 29, 2018
NEW VOICES: Law Enforcement Officials in Washington, Texas Call for End of Their States’ Death Penalties
Drawing on their experience in the criminal justice system, elected law enforcement officials in Washington and Texas have urged repeal of their states’ death-penalty laws. In Washington, King County (Seattle) prosecutor Dan Satterberg (pictured, left), a Republican, testified January 22 before the Senate Law and Justice Committee in favor of a bipartisan legislative proposal to repeal Washington’s capital-punishment statute. Telling the Texas Tribune “[w]e’re killing the wrong people,” former…
Read MoreJan 27, 2018
U.S. Supreme Court Stays Alabama Execution to Consider Vernon Madison’s Competency to Be Executed
The United States Supreme Court has stayed the execution of Vernon Madison to consider for a second time questions related to his competency to be executed. In a 6 – 3 vote, with Justices Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch dissenting, the Court halted Alabama’s scheduled January 25 execution of Madison “pending the disposition of the petition for a writ of certiorari” he had filed seeking review of his competency to be executed. That petition was based upon new evidence of his deteriorating mental…
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Jan 25, 2018
Wake County, North Carolina Jury Rejects Death Penalty in Ninth Consecutive Case
A Wake County, North Carolina jury has rejected the death penalty for 24-year-old Donovan Jevonte Richardson (pictured) and sentenced him to two life sentences, marking the ninth consecutive Wake County capital trial to result in a life verdict. No jury has imposed the death penalty in the county since 2007. “The reality,” said Gretchen Engel, Executive Director of the Durham-based Center for Death Penalty Litigation, is that “it just doesn’t make sense to pursue the death penalty in Wake…
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Jan 25, 2018
Wake County, North Carolina Jury Rejects Death Penalty in Ninth Consecutive Case
A Wake County, North Carolina jury has rejected the death penalty for 24-year-old Donovan Jevonte Richardson (pictured) and sentenced him to two life sentences, marking the ninth consecutive Wake County capital trial to result in a life verdict. No jury has imposed the death penalty in the county since 2007. “The reality,” said Gretchen Engel, Executive Director of the Durham-based Center for Death Penalty Litigation, is that “it just doesn’t make sense to pursue the death penalty in Wake…
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Jan 24, 2018
Florida Denies New Sentencing Hearings to More than Thirty Prisoners, Most Unconstitutionally Sentenced to Death
In three days of bulk decision-making, the Florida Supreme Court has denied new sentencing hearings to more than thirty death-row prisoners, declining to enforce its bar against non-unanimous death sentences to cases that became final on appeal before June 2002. At least 24 of the prisoners who were denied relief had been unconstitutionally sentenced to death after non-unanimous jury sentencing recommendations, including three prisoners — Etheria Verdell Jackson, Ernest D. Suggs, and Harry…
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Jan 23, 2018
Condemned Alabama Prisoner Seeks Stay Based on Mental Incompetency and Arrest of Court-Appointed Expert
Lawyers for 67-year-old Vernon Madison (pictured), a death-row prisoner whose diagnosis of “irreversible and progressive” vascular dementia has left him with no memory of the crime for which he was sentenced to death, have filed a motion to stay his January 25 execution in Alabama. In a petition for writ of certiorari and motion for stay of execution filed January 18 in the U.S. Supreme Court, Madison’s lawyers argue that the courts wrongly found Madison competent to be executed based upon the…
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Jan 22, 2018
Father Who Survived Shooting Asks Texas Not to Execute His Son
Kent Whitaker, who survived a shooting in which his wife, Tricia and younger son, Kevin were murdered, has asked the state of Texas to spare the life of his only remaining son, Thomas “Bart” Whitaker (pictured), who was convicted and sentenced to death for their murders. Kent Whitaker told the Austin American-Statesman, “I have seen too much killing already. I don’t want to see him executed right there in front of my eyes,” he said. The petition for clemency filed on January 10 by Bart…
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