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: 4241 — 4250
Nov 02, 2010
Texas Prosecutors Accuse Former District Attorney of Egregious Misconduct in Innocence Case
At a recent press conference in Texas, prosecutors accused former district attorney Charles Sebesta of hiding and tampering with evidence, and of threatening witnesses in order to convict Anthony Graves in 1994. Graves was recently exonerated from death row and freed after 18 years of confinement for a crime he did not commit. Kelly Siegler, a special prosecutor hired to review Graves’s case after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit overturned his conviction, said Sebesta indicted…
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Nov 01, 2010
NEW VOICES: Elie Wiesel Speaks about the Death Penalty
Elie Wiesel, acclaimed author, human rights activist, Nobel Peace laureate and Holocaust survivor, spoke about his opposition to the death penalty during a lecture on capital punishment at Wesleyan University in Connecticut in October. Wiesel, who lost both parents and a sister in the Nazi death camps, focused his remarks on family members of murder victims. He said that murderers should be punished more harshly than other prisoners and encouraged the criminal justice system to focus efforts on…
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Oct 29, 2010
EDITORIAL: “No Justification” for Recent Execution
On October 29, a New York Times editorial raised many concerns regarding the recent execution of Native American Jeffrey Landrigan in Arizona. The Times said “the system failed him at almost every level, most disturbingly at the Supreme Court.” Landrigan’s execution garnered national attention because a nationwide shortage of sodium thiopental forced the state to seek the drug from foreign suppliers. Despite repeated orders from a federal District Court judge, Arizona refused to divulge the…
Read MoreOct 28, 2010
Anthony Graves Becomes 12th Death Row Inmate Exonerated in Texas
Anthony Graves (pictured) was released from a Texas prison on October 27 after Washington-Burleson County District Attorney Bill Parham filed a motion to dismiss all charges that had resulted in Graves being sent to death row 16 years ago. Graves was convicted in 1994 of assisting Robert Carter in multiple murders in 1992. There was no physical evidence linking Graves to the crime, and his conviction relied primarily on Carter’s testimony that Graves was his accomplice. Two weeks before Carter…
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Oct 27, 2010
BOOKS: “The Confession” by John Grisham
A new novel by acclaimed author John Grisham, entitled “The Confession,” tells the story of Donte Drumm, an innocent man who was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in Texas. The book begins as the execution of Drumm is only four days away and another man confesses to the crime to a minister. Although a work of fiction, Grisham’s work offers a critique of our criminal justice system and of the death penalty in particular. USA Today’s review of the book notes, “Readers who share…
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Oct 26, 2010
Texas Inmate May Be Executed Despite Proof of Intellectual Disability
Michael Hall was sentenced to death in 2000 in Texas for kidnapping and murder. At the time of his trial, his IQ was measured at 67. Generally, a person with intellectual disability is defined as someone with an IQ of 70 or lower, along with limitations in adaptive skills. In 2002, the Supreme Court ruled in Atkins v. Virginia that executing someone who has an intellectual disability (mental retardation) constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, but the high court left it to each state to…
Read MoreOct 25, 2010
NEW RESOURCES: The Atlantic Center for Capital Representation
The Atlantic Center for Capital Representation (ACCR) is a newly formed non-profit death penalty resource center located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. ACCR provides pre-trial consultation to capital defense practitioners and defense teams in Pennsylvania and Delaware. They are involved in conducting statewide capital defense trainings, as well as public education and advocacy. The ACCR is led by Marc Bookman and Dana Cook, both formerly of the Homicide Unit of the Defender Association of…
Read MoreOct 22, 2010
Sentencing Judge Second-Guesses Death Sentence In Light of New Evidence
On October 20, attorneys for Jeffrey Landrigan filed a clemency petition with the Arizona Board of Executive Clemency calling on the Board to recommend the commutation of Landrigan’s death sentence largely because of errors by his trial attorneys. Landrigan’s original attorneys failed to present mitigating evidence at the sentencing hearing, which could have included evidence of brain damage and severe abuse. Judge Cheryl Hendrix, the judge who imposed Landrigan’s death sentence, recently…
Read MoreOct 21, 2010
Expert Who Predicted “Future Dangerousness” in Texas Death Cases Ruled Unreliable
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals recently held that the methodology used by Dr. Richard Coons to predict the “future dangerousness” of capital defendants was unreliable. Whether a convicted defendant would be a future danger to society is a crucial question for juries in Texas in choosing between a life or death sentence. Dr. Coons has testified in over 150 death penalty trials across the state. He admitted in a recent hearing that he had developed his own methodology for assessing future…
Read MoreOct 20, 2010
ARBITRARINESS: 10% of Counties Account for All Recent Death Sentences in the U.S.
A recent article in Second Class Justice, a weblog dedicated to addressing unfairness and discrimination in the criminal justice system, highlighted that the death penalty continues to be arbitrarily applied in the United States. Citing figures from the American Judicature Society, author Robert Smith revealed that only 10% of U.S. counties accounted for all of the death sentences imposed between 2004 and 2009, and only 5% of the counties accounted for all death sentences between 2007 and 2009.
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